Skip to main content

A Good Time To Write

Sorry that there was no new post last week. I had every intention of keeping up my new found enthusiasm for writing and blogging but it took a bit of a hit on Friday when I felt ill again. (Or thought I did.) I ground to a halt, with the intention of not returning to writing until I felt completely well again as this "stop-start" situation was driving me nuts.

It took a visit from my writing friend Jane on Monday to get me going again, interestingly because I felt she actually gave me "permission" to give up writing altogether or at least take a decent break from it and concentrate on the other areas of my "portfolio". However, after she'd gone and I faced up to that possibility, I realised I didn't want to give up writing after all!

I did decide though that I needed to make some changes to the way I work. (If you are struggling with your writing, I can definitely recommend an in-depth discussion with a fellow writer on the practicalities of the job. It really helps.) One of the things I felt I needed to do was to change the time of day, or night in my case, that I write.

As you will know if you are a regular reader of my musings, I prefer to have a "day" first and then write at night. This is OK up to a point but recently, partly because of my health problems and other factors, I've been finding it increasingly difficult to get down to writing after doing "home" stuff and have ended up starting to write about ten minutes before I should be getting ready for bed!

Also, night-working is very isolating and I think that this, coupled with a current lack of "progress" with my writing, despite having been quite successful with it in the past, has made it really difficult for me to sustain the enthusiasm and energy that you need in order to be a professional writer.

So...as from yesterday, I am now getting up between 4 and 5am (gulp!) and trying to write first thing in the morning instead of last thing at night. I have tried this before and it didn't really work once it started to get light in the mornings (I think I was a vampire in a previous life!) so it will be interesting to see if it does this time round. I certainly feel pretty "jet-lagged" at the moment and think I will be going back to bed for an hour or two in a while but it is obviously early days yet. (Literally.)

I'd be interested to know what time of day other people like to write. Are you a "morning" writer or a night-owl like me? Do you feel the need, as I do, to have a period of quiet time in which to work or can you write with kids, pets, spouses, trades people all vying for your attention? I look forward to hearing your views, if I can manage to stay awake, that is.      

Comments

  1. I always thought I was a morning writer but, actually, I've come to realise that I feel most motivated in the late afternoon and evening. This can be a problem since my husband goes to bed about 10.30 and I hate waking him up. But I can't work after about 11. Also, if I don't get anything done in the morning I start to panic and assume I've wasted the whole day. No easy answers.

    BTW, congrats on your recent Flash success but no doubt you want to blog about it so I won't steal your thunder!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am definitely NOT a morning writer as by the end of three days of trying to do it, I felt truly horrendous. So it's back to "nights" but in the day if that makes any sense. Hope you can find a way of working that doesn't cause too much marital strife.

    Thanks very much for your congrats. Yes, I will be blogging about it so watch this space!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shortlisted in the Writer's Toolkit Flash Fiction Competition

Hi everyone. A good writing week this week, despite the distractions of the cricket and the tennis, possibly because my portfolio career has been suspended, pending further enquiries (don't tell my patrons!) and I've been at my desk every night. Long may it continue! I said in my last post that I was recently shortlisted (top ten) in the Writer's Toolkit flash fiction competition. The competition brief was to write a short story of 150 words or less on the theme of 'Secrets'. My story actually came out at exactly 150 words because at the last minute, after I'd sealed the envelope, I suddenly panicked and decided that the wording of the rules could mean that the story had to be exactly 150 words. Mine was 149 if I remember correctly and it was surprisingly difficult to add that extra word! Apparently the competition attracted 182 entries (which I must admit was quite a surprise) and entries came from several European countries as well as the UK. I was particu

The Mail on Sunday Feature

Hi everyone. Well, it's not every day that The Mail on Sunday runs a double-page spread about the book you are writing. This is what happened to me last Sunday, and I'm still recovering from the shock. It was about three weeks ago that I received an email, completely out of the blue, from the paper's chief reporter. Apparently, he had been researching the issue of copyright on unpublished letters for something he was working on and had come across a blog post that I had  written about this very subject. https://melissalawrencewriter.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/publish-and-be-damned.html The post in question was about my own copyright issues concerning the large collection of letters and postcards I have inherited from my grandmother. These are not just any old letters and postcards. They were written to my grandmother by her close friend, Ethel North, who was lady's maid and companion to Lady Winifred Burghclere, elder sister of the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, between

What Makes A Good Beginning?

Hi everyone. Happy New Year! I hope you had an enjoyable Christmas, if you celebrate it of course, and as it’s now the beginning of another new year, I thought I’d pose the question “What makes a good beginning?” So if you’ve not already had enough quizzes over the festive period, you might like to have a go at seeing how many of these famous novels you can identify from their opening lines. Answers are at the end of the post if you want to put yourself out of your misery. 1. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. 2. I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. 3. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. 4. Call me Ishmael. 5. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. 6. It was a pleasure to burn. 7. Like most people I lived for a long time with my mother and father . 8. Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . 9. Far out in the uncharted b