The Write Time
One would think that the least difficult part of writing for me would be finding time to do it. It is just me in this house, with no-one for whom I caretake, so having quiet time to write should be a cinch.
One would think.
When I get home from work, which is any time between 2 and 3:30pm, I spend at least an hour, usually two, speaking with the long distance boyfriend (LDBF for future writing) who lives in a time zone six hours ahead. (Yes, 4000 miles were not enough, we threw in a six hour time difference to make this interesting.) Frankly, I do not like that this is the only time we get during the day to talk because I am not at my best. I could use some downtime after work. My job leaves me frazzled at the end of the day and I worry that LDBF only gets that side of me. I try to use the drive home to decompress a little by blasting my favorite tunes and thinking of the weekend or something, but even in traffic the drive only takes about twenty minutes. Some days, trust me, take much longer than that to get over.
It is difficult for him, too, because being six hours ahead and waking almost as early as I do and working just as hard and in his own stressful job, it is late in his day, he is exhausted, and talking with a frazzled me is probably not how he would choose to relax before bed.
We do what we can do.
After we hang up, I have the entire evening in front of me. This is when I should see uninterrupted time for writing and what could be the problem?
I usually make dinner first because I do not get time to eat during the day. By the time I cook (and being a vegetarian who likes to eat healthy meals necessitates cooking), eat, and clean up from dinner and do the few chores that I need to do every day, it is usually about 6 or 7p. Still, plenty of evening ahead.
One would think.
If I do not need to log on and work in the evenings, which has happened often so far in 2010, this is when I try to write. I open my Scrivener application to work on the novel or a new wordprocessing document to write a short story and...
My brain has hung the Closed sign. I am definitely a morning person when it comes to being able to do anything creative. If I had a particularly good day and it left me feeling energized, or if a blog post or plot point bounced around my mind all day, I can do nighttime writing, but overall, I prefer mornings. On the weekends, if I get started writing early in the morning, I can write the entire day without ever getting tired or getting tired of it. During the week, that just does not happen.
So what about morning writing during the week? As you will tell from the timestamp on this post, I am up early. As a rule, I need to be up and going by 4am during the week to be at work by 5:30 or 6am. However, my body is on some sort of sleep revolt and I actually wake up between 12:30 and 1:30am every day, which is another reason my brain is out of commission by 7pm. I try to go back to sleep when I can, or, like today, I write. Maybe my body is shunning sleep in order to give me the time I need to write? Not what I would have requested, but well-intentioned, I suppose.
So I have that going for me... a two hour block of time to myself in the wee hours.
It is quiet.
Yawn.
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When do you do your best writing or the creative endeavor you like to pursue? Have you had to adjust your schedule to accommodate? How do you fit in what you love with everything you have to do?
blogging, writing in About My Day 
Reader Comments (6)
Unfortunately, I do my best writing at night. When I finally lie down to sleep after a crazy day (and every day is crazy) is when my mind finally kicks into gear and decides to process all of those wonderful ideas that have been kicking around in there. Doesn't allow for a relaxing bedtime, let me tell you, and often times, I don't have the chance to put those ideas down on "paper" because I am just so exhausted that all I want to do is go to sleep... *sigh* It's an imperfect world, isn't it?
well, I'm not a writer...my creative endeavors require more than time. Specifically, they require either an appropriate location or a willing subject or both. So, every instant that I can be somewhere that might make a good photograph, I am there. I used to wait for alone time, but I NEVER EVER am alone...now I just take my kids with me. I pack my camera to work, to the store, to the farm...wherever photographs might be. And then I steal 10 minutes here and there to edit them. Perhaps you should be a photographer? You could specialize in nighttime photography ;-)
I'm not a morning person, period. I write whenever I get the time, which is really any time I want, since I don't have to leave the house. I do find that I tend to write my best stuff at night, though. I've heard lots of advice about finding time to write. One of the more popular ones, as you seem to know already, is to wake up an hour earlier than usual, or go to bed an hour later. Use that hour.
I would never call myself a writer. I would choose classes that had 10x the work if they did not require paper writing. It is not part of my soul. I do, however, occasionally tinker out a blog post. I've been doing more of that recently than I did before. My creativity comes through other mediums. I love photography and I love knitting. I try to always have my camera in my bag, and I generally have a knitting project in my bag too. (Big bag to accomodate a dSLR and all of that yarn!) I take the time whenever an opportunity presents itself. I pull over to the side of the road to photograph something that catches my eye. I walk outside and give myself 20 feet in any direction and 10 minutes to find something, some little detail, that is worth capturing. (This is a really helpful exercise in developing the creative eye for photography.) You'll find me knitting during the period breaks at the ECHL hockey games in town. I sneak in the time when I can. Forunately for me, none of it requires to same lengthy dedication that writing does. Good luck in finding more time for yourself when the juices are flowing!
Unfortunately the time I have to write (like you) is not my best time either. I am more of a morning person, but I simply do not have the time in the morning. So, like you, I end up sitting down at night (after the kids are in bed in my case) and then my brain shuts down and the bed starts calling calling calling me. I can only write then if I have something I've been thinking about all day or working out for several days. Sadly, that's why my writing has suffered in the last six months (well, really, longer) because I can only write when I feel inspired. Most writers I know of develop a writing practice--set aside a time and place every day to write. But I can't seem to do that.
Unfortunately that all means I can't offer you any advice, only comiseration.
Sometimes "writing" is a composition of one-liners,text reminders,voice messages, scraps of paper with scratches of notes.I'm a touchy- feely person right down to my soul. When I get inspired, by any means, it may not be the available time to "write" . Just as "writing" time may not touch a lick of inspiration. For me, it's a spontaneous reaction, of which cannot be forced. No time-line, no schedule, no obligation or expectation.