Amy Shearn, Morning Person

I don't like mornings. I remember the torture of staying in my room until 6AM as a little kid, but I recently started setting my alarm for 7, and it hurts. For the first few hours I'm a coffee-seeking missile, although -- as hoped -- modestly more productive during the day overall. (That's still an hour-plus later than I used to get up in high school, after staying up all night on AOL IM! Ah, youth.)

So I was impressed by writer Amy Shearn's confession in an interview with Claire Zulkey that she wrote her first novel, HOW FAR IS THE OCEAN FROM HERE, before work every day:

I write in the mornings before work, from 5:30-7:43, because at 7:43 I need to watch Pat Kiernan on In the Papers or my whole day feels sad and empty. Then I go to work... I think you have to treat it like a job. Even if you have a job already.

(Kiernan is a NY1 anchor, which I didn't know before.)

I had requested to review Shearn's novel, and it didn't work out, but I'm definitely interested in checking it out now. As it turns out, she is giving a free writing class in New York City tonight, at the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble. I wish I could make it, but being otherwise occupied I will have to catch her when she gives another on October 5th.