It’s 5:14 a.m. here in Southern California and I’ve been awake almost an hour. I awoke with my heart beating hard and fast. I did some deep breathing and soon the heart calmed down. But I was still awake. So I did what I always do when I can’t stay asleep–I got up, fed Rosie (JoJo is in absentia), made a cup of tea and sat down at the computer to prepare for my show (Michael Datcher and Francine Prose are on) and catch up, before I take Trav to school and go to Dr. Ron the acupuncturist and do more holiday shopping and hope that the appliance repairman comes today to fix the oven so I can actually bake cookies.

I just don’t sleep the way I used to. Too much on my mind? Too much caffeine (tea?)? Too much to do? I dunno.

I tend to not write when I wake up earlier than I would like. Although this may just be a recent thing, since my plate, which has turned into a platter this fall, overfloweth with work/tasks/obligations other than writing fiction, which is sheer luxury.

One resolution for the New Year is to scale back onwork work, and finish my novel. Maybe another should be to sleep more. Although perhaps 6 – 7 hours sleep is enough for me.

What are your sleep habits? Do you wake up earlier than you would like? And when you do, what do you do?