Writing Schedule...Do What's Right For You.

So when I was working 40 hours a week and writing every chance I could get in between, I woke up at 6 am everyday and wrote for as long as I could before I had to start getting ready for work. By the time I got home from work, trying to write was next to impossible. My brain was fried by the end of the day. And when weekends came, I would binge write during that free time.

But now that I'm trying to work on writing as my full-time gig, it seems as if there are plenty of hours in the day, which makes procrastination a real problem. At least with working a regular job, I knew I only had so many hours to get some writing done, so it put a fire under my ass. Writing, when you have no supervisor takes a lot of discipline.

Also, at the start of the year I went back to the gym. Being an author is a very sedentary career. And I didn't want to get in the habit of sitting all day and not getting in any exercise. So I started going to the gym in the mornings with my parents, because everyone says working out in the morning is the best time. They even said on the news that working out helps blood flow to the brain, which helps brain activity. But trying to fit in my workout schedule and my writing schedule together in the mornings, turned out to be counterproductive for me.

Working out like most people do, during those early hours ruined my writing schedule. Because miraculously, my brain seems to work better coming up with ideas, first thing in the morning. But for weeks I was going to the gym during that golden time frame. And by the time I was done, I had nothing left for my story. And the evening hours have never worked for me, whether I'm free all day or not. My brain can't create a simple damn sentence in those hours, unless I'm on a roll right at the end of a novel. So for a while there, I thought it was me. I thought, "That's it. That's all I have to give. I have no more ideas left in this brain of mine."

So yesterday I decided to test the theory. Instead of doing what everyone else does, I woke up and went back to writing instead of working out and....Voila!!! Just like that, ideas, storyline and dialogue came to me! And I got a nice little chunk of writing done for the first time in over a month. And when I was ready for a writing break, I went to the gym. And I had energy for my workout, perky and happy as a bug under a rug.

So the moral of the story is, don't let anyone or societal norms dictate what works best for you and your writing schedule. Play around with your time. Test it out to see what time frame(s) you strike gold the most and then work around it. Everyone is different. Never in a million years did I think I'd be a morning person...but here I am. So just do you and you'll be happier for it!

'Til next time...