In The Morning

Many of us tend to waste our mornings. As musicians, those half-awake hours before you get to lunch, especially those before you actually leave for a day-job if you have one, are prime wasted time bits that are just waiting to be mined for their goodies. Here are a few ways you can get your creativity working, even if fingers or even eyes aren't fully functional just yet.

MORNING SONGWRITING

In some ways, being in a total daze and barely able to think can really work for, not against you. Your conscious mind isn't working overtime yet, and is probably mostly still asleep, so is your internal editor who keeps telling you things aren't good enough. Just let words tumble off your fingers into your computer, or use a microphone and record your ramblings as the first pot of coffee or tea is brewing. You may find you write some of your most ingenious guitar licks when you are half-asleep when you review your practice tapes if you try to sneak in a few minutes of playing while your eggs are boiling. Sure, you may need to do some serious rewriting later, but chances are you will jot down some real gems from your heart before your too-thoughtful part of your brain ruins it by cluttering it with too many notes, syllables or clever layers of meaning. You should have at least some scrap paper and a writing implement or a recorder (or at least leave a message on your answering machine if you have a celphone, but make sure you don't do this while in motion while driving and get a ticket), and put these tidbits onto something at those long stoplights. This is much more fun than getting to work all stressed out, and your co-workers may wonder what that silly grin on your face is from.

MORNING WEBSURFING

Checking your email first thing in the morning can be a treasure trove of new information. You may find the newest tip sheets, a news alert about an upcoming event you'd love a chance to get into and can if you are the first of only a few dozen they will let in, and that note from a co-writer that the file you sent was corrupted and you really need to try again so they can finish their bit in time for that upcoming convention. Then you will have the workday to think about what you can do once you get home, or even take some action on a break if you need to once the rest of the world has woken up. This can give you the drop on the competition, which may be "lucky enough" to sleep in, but may not be as hungry for this as you are. You also have a few moments when perhaps thousands of other people aren't trying to upload changes to websites on your same server, so that you may not have to retry at all, or at least not as many times. Web traffic may be less, too, so this may be a good time to upload a new song to your site while you get ready for work, and hopefully can restart it if things go wrong instead of coming home and finding you have to try again while dodging more people online.

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