There are times when I miss being unemployed.
Don't get me wrong: my job's not horrible. I make plenty of money, my co-workers aren't bad, and my boss has made it clear she'll be borderline traumatized when I eventually give notice. ^_^ Hell, because of how long I've been there and how much I know, my former supervisor told me I wasn't allowed to quit - she said the place was a black hole and it would never let me go.
I told her I keep universes in my head, so a black hole was nothing to fear. But I digress.
What I miss about being unemployed is being able to stay up as late as I want and not have to worry about when I get out of bed the next day. Because, frantic scribbling of story notes while at work aside, I'm more creative at night.
I've been like this as far back as I can remember. Way back when I was pecking out really bad stories on a DOS computer with 3 megahertz and an amber monitor, it was always in the evening and at night, as that was the only time I could have the computer to myself. I kept at this habit all through high school and college (though thankfully I got my own computer as a high school graduation present), and it's continued to this day.
Which makes it really annoying to have to stop writing and plotting by 9:30 PM so I can get to bed and get up for work the next day.
I know I'm capable of working during the day. When I'm editing a book, I'll often do two sessions on weekends, one day and one night. If I'm at home on the weekend and I have a plot idea, I'm writing it down, no matter what time of day it is. Sometimes I get really inspired and do full plotting sessions on weekend days, even weekend mornings. Nothing quite like getting out of bed with an idea.
My writing during the day is less great, as most books I've written that I actually liked were done completely in the darker hours. But I have no trouble with editing or plotting during the day and writing at night. That sounds really damn good, actually.
I tell myself that, someday, I'll be able to go back to those days when I could stay up late and wake up around 10:00 the next day. Because in theory, someday I'll be doing this as a full-time job. I'll have deadlines, sure, but I'll still have the same number of hours in a day, I'll just spend more of them up late at night. And my (equally theoretical) agent and publisher will get used to getting e-mails from me at four in the morning their time. I do hope they're not awake to get them, because damn, keeping eccentric hours should be the job of the actual eccentric. ^_^
So, what about the rest of you? When are you the most creative, or when do you feel you do the best work? If you have a particular time, how did you figure it out? And does anyone else ever miss being unemployed because of all this?
I have learned that I need to write first drafts late at night. That's when the very critical internal editor clocks off and the Muse turns up for her shift.
ReplyDeleteBut I can revise already written words at any time of day.
Which reminds me ... I was working on something at 1am last night, something new. My computer restarted overnight, and closed out all the documents. (Hate it when it does that.) I better go look for what I wrote. I hope it was saved!!!!
Gah! Hope it was saved too. >_< I've never lost anything, but I had my word processor crash horribly in the middle of a book once and delete that file, only to hide it as a backup file. Found the file, didn't lose anything, but nearly had a heart attack.
DeleteI used to consider myself a morning person, but I seem to write better in the afternoons and evenings, unless I'm just plain exhausted by then.
ReplyDeleteI think part of it is that, when my kids come home and my focus shifts to them and cooking supper, etc., my writing becomes the forbidden fruit. I can't write with all that going on, but do I ever I want to! LOL There's many an evening that I think: if I could just keep writing into the night without anyone around, I could finish the whole damned book. :P
I know the feeling, I'm a morning person too. Most of the time when I've tried to write in the morning, it's gone badly. -_- And yes, there are always a ton of distractions, seems like it's that way for every writer. I understand why some people write on computers that aren't connected to the internet.
DeleteI think I'm to the age where I just can't stay up late anymore. I barely make it to midnight on New Year's Eve. Instead, I do my best work in the early evenings, after dinner but before bedtime.
ReplyDeleteThat's about when I work too, and I understand not being able to stay up late anymore - I only stay up that late at DragonCon, and that's in a different time zone, so it's not the same. ^_^
DeleteNICE THE SIGNOUT BUTTON IS WHERE THE POST BUTTON IS ON EVEY OTHER PAGE WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
ReplyDeleteso anyway like I said before but am now too annoyed to retype without sounding miserable - when I worked part time and rented cheap I was rich n happy. fuck. so yeh, i do all my best work when i'm not tired and that's always these days. fuck it.
mind you everything i write is FUCKING AWFUL so who gives a shit
god i cant even make sense on draft 2 for fucks sake
DeleteMASON! I gotta like go visit your damnable country and have a coffee with you in some wanky cafe somewhere and we can talk about writing loudly in public XD
totes nearly hit sign out instead of post again fuck
DeleteEverybody writes bad stuff. Seriously, you shouldn't see the first book I wrote under any circumstances. Or the second. You saw the third waaaaaaaaay back when, and it's so horrible that horridness got its own journal entry a while back. Gah! But keep going, because that's the only way to get better.
DeleteMazey boy i tell you what, if i find a bottle with a genie in it one of my wishes is you get to write full time! the other one is i get to be a god so y'know i could probably take care of things anyway but just so y'know in case the genie can't do god powers he can at least give us both a lump o' gold the size of a car to sell
ReplyDeleteI appreciate that, but I'm still a stickler for doing this the old-fashioned way. :P
DeleteYes, you WILL get there. Keep holding onto that!
ReplyDeleteI've always hated the advice that writers should get up very early and write in the morning. I can't count the numbers of places I've read that. But I am a NIGHTMARE in the early mornings. I am useless, useless, useless. My best hours seem to be late afternoon/early evening, from about 3pm to 7pm. Yes, right smack dab in the middle of a work day. Sigh. Some day...
Thank you. ^_^ And I think whoever came up with early morning writing was already writing full-time, so they could set their own schedule. The rest of us are at the mercy of our jobs... no tender mercy, as we both clearly know. >_<
DeleteYeah, I'm productive when I'm productive. I think that's The Dude's way of saying, when shit gets too real, your choices are buck up, quit or go home. When I had space to do whatever I wanted, I spent most of that time farting around. The real way that you know you're a writer is that you keep writing even though you are squished into a full time. I think the full time writing gig will be great when it comes up, but you have to realize that gig is just as time constrained as the one you work now. You know what they say about self employment? You get to pick which 80 hours a week you work.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing I've found, is that the more I say "this is when I I have time to write" the more writing I get done in that time. It sort of sucks to be all regimented about it, but it works. I feel like the reason I used to get so much work done at night was that I was getting up late, farting around and not getting down to business for hours. By the time it got to be 5 o'clock at night, I'd be like "well, crap, I haven't DONE anything today. I'd better get some writing done."
Still, I hope you get a chance to set your hours some day so you can test your productivity schedule.
Yeah, I'm all about setting a schedule. I make sure my ass is in the chair so I can get started at some point between 7:30 and 8:00 PM every night, and when I was on my writing vacation earlier this year, I made sure to start my first shift between 8:30 and 9:00 AM as well. It was great for production, if not for quality. >_<
DeleteAnd hey, if I'm going to be time-constrained, I'd much rather it's doing a job I love instead of just the one that pays the bills. ^_^
As a teacher, I get to be unemployed three months of the year -- I definitely long for that writing time during the school year. 5-10K a day during the summer dwindles to 1K/day -- if I'm lucky.
ReplyDeleteI've heard many reasons why teachers love their summers, and I'll add that to the list. ^_^ But that makes sense, and it looks like you get quite a bit done even during your school year.
DeleteLately my mantra has been, "I cannot WAIT to get my days back." When I was a student, I had all the time in the world. Wake up, write, workout, go to class, workout again. But now, the real world intrudes upon my writing and working out time and that makes me grumpy sometimes. I'm definitely no good writing at night. In fact, sometimes I get up at 4am to make sure I get a good writing session in before work. Because when I'm creatively backed up I'm no fun to be around. Fingers crossed for us both writing full time some day soon!
ReplyDeleteGood to know I'm not the only one unpleasant to be around when the writing's not going well. :P I'm really glad I'm not a morning writer, else I'd be going to bed at 7PM every night just to wake up and write before work. Gah. And yes, here's hoping for full-time writerhood for us both! And everyone else who wants it. ^_^
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