Many writers have a routine. They wake up, drink coffee, and get to work. I used to have a routine, then kids happened. I have always been what you’d call a night owl. I stayed up well past my parent’s bed time, reading comics or watching late night TV. I was possibly the only kid my age who knew the theme song to Mr. Ed back in the 80’s.
Numerous books and articles will tell you that one of the most important elements to having a productive day is a good night’s sleep. You need to respect your circadian rhythm. But life does not know how to respect routine for it is chaos.
Everyone has their own circadian rhythm. Mine loves late nights where I go to bed as the sun is rising and wake up to bid the sun adieu. This is not an option when you have kids who need to get to school and you are parent responsible for that since you work from home. So my routine is to get up and get them out of the house on time.
As a teenager, I stayed up late and hissed at the rising sun like a deranged vampire.
In college, I had only one 8AM class. I ended up dropping that class and like any reasonable college student, made sure the one day I did get up early when we chose the next semester classes. I never had a class before 11AM or attend classes more than three days a week for the rest of my college career. Never.
Into adulthood, I had jobs in retail, a couple office gigs, but mostly retail. Most stores don’t open until 10AM and only managers ope the store outside of the holidays. Again, I could sleep in and stay up late working or playing video games. I played WAY too many video games when I should have been writing.
I got married and kept my normal late night habits right up until my first child was born. My sleep schedule was no longer my own. I needed to get to sleep early (not easy for me) and wake up early (angry!) and this is my new schedule.
The day will come that they are old enough to get up themselves and my normal tendencies will be allowed to run free into the night. Until then, I wake up, stagger through the morning, and do my best to not lose the precious hours of the day to get words on the page.
Dickens called the afternoon a mongrel time. I call it the only time I have. At least for now.