Hi, this is Celeste. I have been writing poems since 2017 and my crime novel Project Dylan since 2022.

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Time as a reward

I have heard of V. E. Schwab for a long time but I have not read any of her novels. I have The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue on my shelf but I haven’t got around to read it yet (finger crossed that I will read it this year). The eight hundred books are looking at me in disbelief.

I love reading V. E. Schwab’s newsletter The Visble Life of V.E. Schwab, where she talks about life, her writing progress and latest news on her work. She also has a podcast No Write Way with V. E. Schwab.

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Her latest newsletter got me thinking about using time as a reward. She called this ‘Early Morning Goblin Hour’.

I have a hard time giving myself permission to take a day off work. Or even a few hours.

But at the beginning of the month, an odd thing happened. Riley woke me up around 5am because she needed to go out, which would be a hell of a lot easier if I didn't live in a top-floor flat several blocks from the only place she wants to go pee. But out we went, and when we got back, I was awake. Not so awake that I wanted to stay up, but too awake to go back to sleep. I was in the middle of the second season of Squid Game and for some reason I decided to make myself a cup of tea and curl up on the couch and watch it.

I have a vivid memory of turning on only a couple lamps, and dragging a duvet off my bed, and feeling so incredibly indulgent there on the sofa (I believe my literal thought was "this is like those aesthetic tiktok videos with the voiceover about cozy morning rituals).

I watched the episode, and felt sleepy again, and instead of climbing back into bed, simply dozed off on the sofa with a cat on my chest until my alarm went off at its usual hour.

I figured it was a fun little one-off, but as I was getting ready for bed that night, I found myself thinking, "oh, I hope I wake up again."

And I did.

It's now nearly a month later, and every morning without fail, I've gotten up—sometimes at 4am, sometimes at 5, and gone into my little sofa nest and watched an episode of Drag Race or read a few chapters of a book, and then gone back to sleep. It's something I look forward to every night before I go to bed, and it took me a little while to figure out WHY.

Here's what it is: I don't feel ANY guilt. It's like I've found a secret hour, one borrowed only from myself. I still wake at 8am feeling perfectly rested. But instead of stacking all my rewards at the end of the day, I start with one. That hour is a designated Early Morning Goblin Hour, safe from self-recrimination of any kind. I don't let myself go on social media, or check email, or do anything that could be considered work. My brain isn't booted up enough to write. The little mental demons are still asleep. And by starting the day with a little kindness toward myself, I feel more equipped to handle the rest.

For someone who like to try new things all the time, I would give it a try.

The night before:

I would think about what I want to do in the morning that makes my soul and spirit feel good. For people who do not know how to relax (including me), this is a great time to try different things or go through your TBR or to watch list.

• Read a novel

• Watch a funny/relaxing/comfort show

• Make my favourite beverage

• Easy knitting projects

• Morning pages (The Artist’s Way) or journalling

• Creative activity that does not require focus or much brain power

The morning:

• Try to wake up one to two hours before I often wake up.

• Don’t worry about work or project

• This is the time to relax. This is the morning version of the nighttime routine, where you do not use your brain.

• Go back to sleep when sheeps are calling you again

• Wake up at usual time

Squeezing time in a hustle culture way

There is another way that you can use your time if you want to get the manuscript done.

In a normal day, I would only have 1 hour to write every day. If I try to do it in a hustling way, I would have around 2 hours to write. (Chores and cooking are such enemies to writers. I don’t care about what I eat but other humans do not think the same and expect me to help the entire time. RIP lost writing time.)

And if I am even more impatient, I can use every minute during commute to write. But the quality would be trash as it is not easy to go back and forth for context on the phone (Google Doc has been on my phone for a while).

This way of squeezing time also leads to burnout much easier. So you would have to use this method with caution.

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See you in two weeks,

Celeste