Sham!

It wasn't until this November that I learned the secret to writing every day.

I should have figured it out before. It was the secret to rowing every day in college, to making dissatisfied people work out every day when I worked in infomercials, to completing an elaborate window display at The Store, and to trading on the NYSE when one is a hedger in California. There's a pattern here, friends. While early to bed and early to rise may not make a man healthy, wealthy, or wise (particularly not the wealthy part), I have a history of getting up early in the morning to go to work.

So of course, of course! dear friends, I started getting up early to write before work. It's the perfect time to write. The house is quiet, the phone doesn't ring, there's nothing interesting on tv, it's not happy hour anywhere on this side of the Atlantic. No distractions, besides tea and cereal.

But rising before the sun is not easy if you are younger than sixty. So I have a series of tricks to haul me out of the bed and over to the writing desk. The first, do not count on a cell phone alarm clock. They are too polite. Your alarm clock should make your heart pound and your hair stand on end. Get one of those mechanical jobs with the little hammer that beats on the bells so hard and fast that your first reaction upon hearing it is to fly to the other side of the bed to make it stop.

Second, have a roommate. If you can use the bathroom whenever the hell you want, you won't be inspired to get up earlier and get to the bathroom first. Start putting out your craigslist ad for someone who to share your bathroom with you, even if they come over from a different apartment.

Have a source of Caffeine in your house at all times. Tea, coffee, energy drink, yerba mate, whatever you need, just have it on hand. If this means you have to spend $2500 on an espresso machine that whips up a cup of bitter sludge Starbuck's style, then do it.

And the last, the most crucial step of all, make your bed immediately upon vacating it. Immediately! While you're still in it, if possible! This is what I do, in fact. When my heart has stopped pounding and my ears have stopped ringing, and when I decide that further delay may cause me to lose my chance at the bathroom, I rearrange my pillows, pull the sheets and comforter taught up to the pillows, then roll sideways out of the bed. Once on my feet, I pick up my pillow shams. Only then, do I turn back to the bed. I toss the shams on, and flee to the bathroom.

After a few blurry minutes in front of the mirror, during which I pretend not to see my hair and brush my teeth like a zombie, I have to return to my room. The frantic alarm clock and the rush to the bathroom behind me, I am now ready to go back to bed. And Woe! Wailing and Gnashing of teeth! The pillow sham is in the way and I can't see the sheets because the duvet is all nice and smooth! Curses, shammed again!

It's to the kitchen, then, and to the kettle. It's time for tea, and writing.