[5am Writer Vlog | Author Brittany Wang] Did waking up at 5am every day to write actually
help my writing well i took this challenge with two of my friends and all three of us
vlogged our experience so you're about to find out but before i get into the vlog basically how this
all came about is that my friends bethany atazadeh and mandi lynn and i were all talking about how we
wanted to put our writing first more we wanted to get more progress and life was just getting in the
way business was getting in the way and bethany was like what if we did a 5 a.m writer challenge
i don't know about mandy but i was like i don't want to do this because she also was like let's
vlog it and i was like ugh you do not want to see me at 5 a.m but you will it's coming up i had also
heard about 5 a.m writer's club and how people would get up at 5 a.m especially if they had
like a day job or they had family and and it was hard to get writing done later in the day and me
as a morning person it sounded like a good idea but it was also like it's 5am it's a little too
early even even for somebody like me but i did really like the idea of having accountability
doing this with two of my friends knowing that we all would be suffering and especially because
i am in the final stages of editing my why fantasy novel on wings of ash and dust and edits have just
been something i've been slogging through i was like i need the extra accountability i need to
make sure my in my case editing comes first if i ever want to get this book published so here's
my experience waking up at 5 a.m for five days in a row and just to warn you because you will see a
christmas tree this was filmed in december and now it's january and if you want to find out overall
did i think this was worth it do i recommend it and will i keep doing it going forward
definitely stay until the end plus please remember that even if this does work for me
not every tactic works for everyone so that's why i also love that there's two other vlogs that
you can go watch two other experiences so after this video definitely make sure to go check out
bethany and mandy's video which i will link down below all right you guys ready here we go
do
good morning guys you get me in all my morning glory at 5 15 in the morning i got up at like 4
50 or something and i'm doing okay i just showed you a little bit of my setup my morning
routine i'm probably not gonna do that every morning because it'll just slow the writing
but there you go i'm really excited to get into things ben is still sleeping and he probably will
be for a while so i'm gonna talk kind of quiet hopefully you can hear me i'm usually in my office
um which i'll probably show you later in the week but we just put the tree up the other day
and i'm just like i need to be near it especially when it's dark it's just so pretty
and uh really sets the mood i've got um this little side table here that's why you see
uh the instant pot from my husband he likes to cook a lot i've got my setup with this little
table scrivener open got some tea with uh one of my one of my new mugs because the book is
is coming out and so i was excited to release some merch to help fund the publication because indie
authors yes they're awesome but we need to pay for everything and then of course we've got the bullet
journal and the checklist of all the chapters i need to do and today i am working on chapter two
of episode two i'm editing with my developmental editor's notes and um yeah developmental editing
it's like a domino effect you change one thing you gotta change a million other things so
hopefully my brain is awake enough uh we're gonna get going and um wish me luck
hey guys okay so it's definitely after seven o'clock and i just realized i never updated you
guys so how did it go this morning i edited slash rewrote for about two hours and it was really
really good i had a lot of energy once i got going and i definitely think my brain like works the
best in the morning so i think this is a win so far still going slow because with developmental
edits i'm just realizing that okay i made some progress here but now i have to go rewrite this
or re-order that it's a process but i'm really um lucky because i have a developmental editor who
is just amazing she read through everything gave me developmental notes but now she is willing to
have me basically resend everything chapter by chapter as i do it and she's giving me further
kind of inline notes and troubleshooting with me and she's just the kind of editor that sort
of in it for the long haul and she's just like i want to be in the process with you and make sure
that you know the changes that you make you know like you have help implementing them and um don't
get stuck and are able to finish and be proud of what you create and i'm like oh you're amazing so
huge shout out to my editor but yeah i'm actually pretty excited to wake up at 5am again tomorrow
um i think it's set up my day really well once ben got up we got to have breakfast and i just
didn't feel like i had to like rush off to go do other work because i had already got
a bunch of editing done in the morning so that was also a win and then later in the day i ran
a sprint on youtube here so that was really cool we're doing fairy themed sprints because
there's fairies in the book and everybody picks a clan that they want to join and then they report
their words or their page numbers and i put them into a kind of point tracker and figure out which
clan wins each round so that's been really fun to implement yeah i didn't mean for this to be
too long just a quick check-in so i'm gonna stop it here and the next time you'll see me
it'll be day two and hopefully it will go as well if not better than today so yeah wish me luck
good morning it's day two and uh definitely more tired i didn't get to sleep
at the same time i did the other night um which was a better time so if you're doing
this i recommend getting to bed earlier and also what i liked about what i did yesterday is i
pre-set up most things um in my writing spot the night before and this morning i sort of was like
fumbling in the dark trying to find everything oh and i was up a little later last night because
i finished another scene and actually my wonderful husband ben just saw struggling and he was like
let me read it let's talk about it and he was super helpful so it's a good reason why i was
up but yeah waking up at five is hard today i have one more scene to finish for chapter two and
then maybe later today i'll actually be able to tackle chapter three so let's see what we can do
i'm covering this you guys don't get spoilers but um one tip i wanted to say is if you are trying to
edit one thing i've been finding really helpful that i haven't been doing before
is actually setting up a totally new document in one screen and then having the old document
of the chapter in this screen on scrivener and then basically either copying and pasting parts
that i'm going to keep as i write or completely rewriting as i read and go through the chapter and
that's just really helping me because i think sometimes when i'm looking at the old chapter
i'm like oh but i don't want to like change it and what if i change it i hate it
this way it's like it's a totally different document and i know i could just do that by like
duplicating the document and like editing it in there but for some reason it's really helping me
to like start with this blank page and if i have to kind of just retype that's just a little tip
that i'm finding helpful in case you're editing too ps i just found it's a really funny if you
can see it that the word exhaustion is just really sticking out to me right now
hey guys welcome to day three we're in my office this morning because i felt like i needed a little
bit of change of scenery and i honestly thought that waking up at five this morning would be
easier by now and it's not easier that being said look at what chapter i'm at for episode one
i'm gonna be honest i didn't get all the way there yesterday morning i was so tired so i worked for
about an hour when i woke up and then i took a nap because i was just exhausted but i think it got me
going for the rest of the day and later i was like you know what i've been stuck on chapter two for a
while i was like okay i'm gonna set 15 minute uh sprints and i'm gonna work on a different chapter
each sprint even if i don't finish editing uh in that time i'm just gonna the alarm's gonna
go off and i'm gonna move on the learning curve of editing and trying different things so hopefully
some of these tips that i'm experiencing along the way might help you but it definitely worked
because the later scenes definitely don't need as much edits as the first two my plan today
is to edit episode seven and eight i've also got some items written in my notebook here uh
brainstorming items that i realized i was trying to edit in the moment but just need a little bit
more brainstorming so i'm going to brainstorm and then i'm going to edit and hopefully by
this afternoon i can get this thing in shape enough to send the whole episode to my editor
hey guess what one she wears real clothes it does happen she doesn't look like a slob
all the time and number two i just sent all eight chapters off back to my editor
that is a miracle because because literally it did not happen all nano and part of
that is i was doing a separate launch that i probably shouldn't have been doing during nano
but i did it and i'm super excited so how did this happen well this morning while i was writing at 5
00 a.m i did get through chapters seven and eight but there were still some scenes that
need some work and i'm just like oh maybe i'll send them maybe i won't and so i took a break
with ben got breakfast got dressed uh cleaned the living room and then i went to go look at
my email and i'm getting google doc updates that my editor is in our shared google doc
giving me some editing notes that i'm just like i want to make the best use of her time because
i know she has other clients so that super motivated me to just take everything i had
and put comments in the places that i needed to clarify things or ask for help
and i just got the rest to her and sent it off in the dock and right now you're seeing nothing
but there are words there i just want to make sure oh you can't read that okay that's good uh i just
want to make sure i have no spoilers but i have all eight chapters sent off to her and i'm feeling
really good because it's only 11 35 and i got the whole episode done like two days earlier than i
thought so do i think that writing at 5am helped me um i definitely think it did because normally
i would have had breakfast and i would have been just sitting down to do editing when i saw her in
the doc and because i had gotten through the last couple chapters i was like i'm going to send it
right now so yeah i'm pretty excited and i think i'm going to take a little break and maybe read a
book or something and reward myself later today i have two writer mastermind groups that i'm a part
of that we meet on wednesdays it'll just be good to kind of celebrate with my friends and um yeah
and then decide how i'm gonna get ahead maybe in the next couple days um so i can get even
more editing done sooner than i wanted so so far 5 a.m is hard hard as heck but um it's helping
especially because i have this goal of trying to get this book published as soon as possible so yay
okay guys obviously it's a lot later in the day but this morning went okay i was still really
tired and honestly i did a lot yesterday so i was trying to give myself some grace but getting
up early did ensure that i put the writing first which is the whole purpose of this experiment and
then i was able to get some other things done like plan some youtube content and answer emails and do
a bunch of other things that i've been putting off because the editing has been so important
without feeling guilty because i made the book the priority but what i'm gonna do after i get up at
5am for day number five tomorrow is to sort of try to do reflection and like a recap of how this week
went and answer the questions did i think this was worth it do i recommend it will i keep doing it
and if not did this change anything so if you want to hear what i think about all that it's coming up
okay well that was a whirlwind anybody else tired let's start with was it worth it and
i would definitely say it was worth trying i definitely put writing first you guys saw me
get a whole episode done earlier than i thought i would which just blows my mind i was definitely
focused sometimes i can get really distracted by like social media or just things happening but
like so much of the world is quiet and a lot of my followers are awake when i'm awake so i didn't
feel like i was majorly missing out on things by not being online and overall the day felt longer
but in a good way for the most part because i felt like there was more to the day like i would look
up and it would be like 11am or noon and i would be like really that's it like i've gotten so much
done today and there's so much of the day left and because of this i also felt less stressed
and less rushed throughout the day and by the time my husband ben came home i really felt like i had
gotten a lot accomplished there were definitely some pretty significant cons though as you guys
saw i was very tired and it didn't get better as the day went on i was exhausted by the end of the
day and i also tried to go to bed early so that i wouldn't be so tired in the morning but that
wasn't always super successful and while the day getting longer was sometimes a good thing it also
was sometimes a bad thing where it just like felt i don't know it just threw me off and it
also wasn't super consistently helpful where like some mornings like my brain was like firing and it
was like so good and i was on a roll and other mornings i would wake up just dead tired and my
brain really wasn't working and then i ended up just like going to take a nap so do i recommend
other people trying this i would definitely say it's worth trying especially if you have other
obligations throughout the day that keep you from writing in general and you want to start building
a habit by writing at the same time every day it might also be really helpful to try if you feel
like you're in a writing rut and later in the day maybe you have less energy whereas if if you tried
earlier in the day you might find out that early in the morning is actually like a genius zone for
you where your brain is actually more creative and works a whole lot better but if you are going to
try this i do recommend a few things first of all i'd give it at least a week or maybe more
just so your body can get used to it i'd also consider your family members and make sure that
you communicate with them about the changes that you might be doing like trying to go to bed early
and with that being said i would definitely check your schedule that week that you want to try it
and really look at it and be like do i have other obligations that are going to keep me from being
able to go to bed at a good time so i can not wake up as a zombie also i would highly suggest trying
this out with friends who want to do it at the same time because i honestly don't know that i
would have gotten through the entire week without having the accountability of bethenny and mandy so
thanks ladies this was a lot of fun and hard it it was also really hard so then the question is
will i continue doing it and because i'm filming this outro many weeks after i'm also going to
share have i continued doing this initially after finishing the challenge my goal was to
keep writing first first thing in the day but to wake up just a little bit earlier than i normally
do not at 5am but maybe like 6 or 5 45. maybe i would just keep this to certain days of the week i
was also thinking that whenever i was on deadline and needed some extra time i could just pull out
this idea of doing 5 a.m writing for like a week or so because it did really help me prioritize my
writing and make sure that i got it done if i had to do it again i also don't know if i would have
vlogged it because i think that that actually took away time from the actual editing and writing too
but on the flip side it's also really cool to have this whole journey chronicled and it was
really helpful to have the accountability of my friends okay so like i said i'm filming this outro
many weeks after the vlog and i'm just gonna come clean and say i have not been waking up at 5am
since it was definitely really hard but there have been a few days that i've woken up earlier at like
six something a little more reasonable for me and those days have been really good or just waking up
at my normal time and then making sure that i did writing before i did anything else so after all
this what do you think do you think you'll try the 5 a.m writer challenge please let me know if you
do or if that's something you normally do let me know that in the comments and if you enjoyed this
vlog definitely give this video a thumbs up it really helps my channel and let me know in the
comments do you want to see more vlogs like this like behind the scenes and day in the life also
definitely don't forget to watch bethany and mandy's vlogs that are linked down below
and if you're looking for more writerly videos check out one of these two and i'll see you there