Sometime back in June, I woke up early as f**k before 5 AM, and my brain was wide awake and refused to let me get back to sleep. So I picked up my phone (as you do), opened Twitter (which you definitely shouldn’t do), and found that a fellow author friend had tagged me in a tweet, saying something like “anyone up for sprints?” And since I couldn’t sleep anyway, I thought “why the heck not?” crawled out of bed, made tea (can’t write without tea), and logged onto the chat we’re using for that purpose. And before it was even 8 AM, I’d written several hundred words.

It felt great.

The thing is that historically, I’m a night owl, who’s always been more creative in afternoons and evenings, so to say I was surprised I could produce words at all that early in the morning is an understatement. But I liked it and set another writing date at 6 AM the next morning (my writing buddy is in the US so we needed to compromise because time difference) and I enjoyed it even more. I ended up inviting a third person, kept setting my alarm to get up to write, and invited a fourth person. And now it’s August 3 and except for two missed days, I’ve gotten up to write every morning since then.

This has meant me finishing three stories since that day in June (I’ve never written this much before). I also managed 50 000 words during Camp NaNoWriMo in July.

Getting up that early makes me feel accomplished and sets a creative tone for the rest of the day which has been helpful in other areas of my life, like the summer classes I’m also taking. And while I absolutely think that creating a routine for writing, setting a schedule, is immensely helpful, that’s not what’s been the most thing.

No, the most important thing is writing buddies. Being an author is an inherently lonely job. I don’t have an office full of colleagues to talk to, and while that’s good most days (I’m an introvert after all) it gets a bit lonely. Sometimes you need someone to bounce ideas off, or just the opportunity to vent at someone who understands.

And my writing buddies have provided me with this. We’re four people, two Swedes (me and Ofelia Gränd), one American (JM Snyder), and one Brit (A.L. Lester), who stay up late/get up ungodly early to write and cheer each other on. Not all of us every morning—people have lives and jobs and families and sleep that keep them away—but one or more of us every day.

And the thought of those people being there in the chatroom, cheering me on, is worth setting the alarm for. The lovely (and very funny) A.L. Lester said this morning that she would’ve stayed in bed if it hadn’t been for the enthusiasm in the chat room, and I understood completely. Because we all know what it’s like to be a writer, and we’re enthusing over all progress, whether if it’s writing 500 words in one 15-minute sprint, or deleting 700 words that didn’t work and thus landing on a negative word count for the sprint. It’s progress, and progress is the important part. Definitely worthy of cheering.

Because after this year we’ve had, don’t we all need a cheerleader in our lives these days? And I’m asking this in all seriousness.

Did you change your sweatpants this morning? Yay, you! Brush your hair? Excellent job! Did you manage to people all day (whether IRL or online) without screaming at someone? Way to go!

These are trying times, and someone on our side cheering us on can make all the difference. Everyone should have their own cheerleader— maybe without the jumping and the pompoms, I don’t need those—but someone telling me I did a good job even if I only managed 50 words that were kind of crappy and will probably be cut in the first round of edits, is invaluable for me and my creativity.

So today, I thought we’d give a shout out to the people in our lives cheering us on, whether they are a family member, a friend, or three people you’ve never met IRL who live in different corners of the world, forsaking sleep to write and be enthusiastic about your progress. The world needs more people like that. ❤️