How Larks Write

I have always been a Lark. I am writing this before seven in the morning, pretty late for me.

When I worked a 9-5 job, I got up at eight minutes past six each morning. I could fit a few minutes of writing in sometime before I left for work. I liked the schedule even though it left me tired in the evening. I would read posts from people who had turned out 800 words in the evening and was astonished that anyone could write anything after dinner. My mind was mush.
After

After I retired something weird happened to my schedule. I started getting up even earlier. I was up and reading email sometimes as early at half past four. I’d get up, walk the dog, pour myself some coffee and sit down to write.
One day poking around on the internet I found something called Circadian Melatonin Shift. Seems that when you get older you wake earlier. Old people who are Owls have a tendency to toward being Larks. In my case I went from Lark to Early Lark.
I liked it because the biggest distraction to my writing was the constant babble of my husband in the background. Now I was getting up three hours before he did and could write in silence for at least an hour.
I sometimes awake as early as three. Since I refuse to get up before four, I lie there going through plot points, planning out blogs, working on characters. I get up at whatever time seems to work that morning, take the dog for her walk (she is a Lark, too), read the paper (the News Journal is a quick read) and start in on my daily writing routine.
I have to write down the things I perfected earlier so I don’t forget them. Pen and paper by the bed doesn’t work for me, since I can’t write in the dark or without my glasses.
On the other hand, my internal editor, the one who sits in the back of my mind and tells me I am writing junk, doesn’t wake up until after seven.
At the other end of the day, I turn on a great TV mystery recommended by my friends and fall asleep in my chair just as it gets interesting. I have no idea who any of the perpetrators are. If it weren’t for On Demand, I would never know how anything came out.
Are you an Owl or a Lark? How do you think the difference effects your writing? Or your life in general?