Another Guest Post for My Wife's Newsletter

So apparently there's some demand for "more Mark content" over on my wife's newsletter. Who knew! If you've read Rebecca's 2023 pandemic memoir, These Days Are Numbered, you know that recreated dialogues with me featured prominently in the Facebook posts that comprised that book, and these tend to be what readers have reacted to the most. (Not bragging, just a fact.) Now that love has followed Rebecca to her recently launched newsletter as she tries to wean herself off the algorithmic hellscape that Facebook has become. But recreated dialogues are, it seems, not enough (man, I wish I were this popular IRL), so Rebecca asked me to pull together another essay instead.

This one is called Why 4:30? and discusses a subject near and dear to my heart: my relatively insane writing process whereby I rise at 4:30 am five days a week to write for two and a half to three hours before toddling off to my day job. This has been a topic of fascination, bafflement and annoyance among friends, family, acquaintances, former roommates, and ex-girlfriends across the 30+ years I've been doing it. So Rebecca suggested I talk about why this is part of my process, what are the creative benefits of writing that early, and whether it's a routine I think I can maintain forever. Anyway - enjoy!

And ICYMI, here is the previous essay I wrote for her, called In Praise of Writing Manuals.