Tag: Writing schedules

So, I wrote this long post yesterday that I’m not going to post because it makes obvious my penchant for self delusion.

After wasting away my Sunday because I was tired (no explanation really but probably not enough vigorous exercise in my days!), I spent a lot of time reading about sleep patterns and decided I was obviously a night owl trapped in a morning person’s schedule. I made a new schedule for myself, and all these plans for the coming week, tried to stay up so I could start Monday off right by sleeping in … and then woke up with the sun at 6:20 am, bright eyed and completely ready to get out of bed. I looked up sunrise on Google. It came at 6:16 am.

So yeah. I’m not a night owl, no matter how easy I find it to stay awake when I’m doing something interesting. I’m a morning person through and through—with the caveat that the sun has to be up! I can’t get up without daylight, but I really don’t think that precludes me being a morning person. As soon as that sunshine comes through my window, my brain comes alive and it doesn’t seem to matter what time I went to bed. :D I’ve stayed up til 3 am and still had a really hard time sleeping past 7-ish, and I actually can’t remember the last time I slept past 8:30 am.

I guess one of the things that fooled me is that I have a spike of energy in the morning that wanes fast, usually gone by 9 and I’m ready to crash. Then I have another surge of energy sometime around late afternoon. And another around 7 or 8 pm. So I seem to have more energy in the afternoons and evenings. I never have trouble going to sleep (except for midday naps). As soon as I’ve decided I’m going to go to sleep (and put away whatever has my attention) I go to sleep. I often wake up in the middle of the night remembering that I have a thought I didn’t finish! :D

But I’ve decided I can add in a morning nap and forget waiting until the afternoon. Sleep when I want; that is definitely one of the perks of writing fiction as a job. :D

Why’d I Abandon Writing During My Morning Tea?

My morning tea session was working great except for one thing. I usually had my tea during or after breakfast, but because the tea session needed to be the first thing I did after my kids left, I got an upset stomach at least half the days I did it.

I really don’t like how I feel when I wait to have breakfast in the mornings. That was ultimately the thing that derailed the morning tea writing session. The morning tea was delaying my breakfast for a variety of reasons by as much as an hour and a half some days, making the stretch between my last night’s supper and my breakfast about 14–15 hours. That’s just too long for me.

So Yeah, I Made a New Schedule

Couldn’t resist! I honestly feel like if I can just settle into a schedule, I’ll noticeably improve my productivity. These last two months have probably been my worst since I started my publishing career.

So here it is.

7–9 am
12–4 pm
8–9 pm

That’s 7 hours, which is  a little short of my 7.8 I originally started with for 2014, but … no, not really, because I originally started with the intent to write for 4 hours every day, before I came up with my “better” 2014 schedule.

I love my 9–12 break and my 4–8 free time and my 9–10 down time. LOL. Yes, I named them all and I named them each something different, just to keep them straight in my head, so my day doesn’t become this one big mess of write, break, write, break, write, break. It’s a mind game, but if it works, who cares, right? ;)

9–12 is when I’m most often tired and don’t really have much energy, but up until 9, I usually have quite a bit of energy and I should capture that for writing.

12–4 is a high energy time for me, as long as I rest at some point during the 9–12 stretch and have a good meal. It’s a great time for writing! Plus, I love writing in the sunshine, and this is good for that too. :D One thing I didn’t like about my previous schedule was trying to nap so late in the day. I always felt like I was wasting good sunlight.

4–8 is when I most often need to do things related to living and having a life. Plus, I have kids and they need me a lot during this time.

8–9 is just a quiet time and so that’s great for one last session before I stop for the evening. It also puts me to thinking about my story before bed and that can only lead to good things! :)

So really, this is my rationale for the new schedule and I’m hopeful it will work out. If not, well, it was just another experiment, and I’m sure I’ll get something out of it—failure is always an option! ;)

So, after giving it a little more thought, but not wanting to veer too far from the plans I’ve already worked out for the one million words challenge, I’ve made myself a new schedule for 2014 that’s turned out to be a bit different than I expected. Better, I hope, but not quite what I laid out in the previous post about it. :D

7am–9:36am
11am–1:36pm
4pm–6:36pm

There’s a somewhat complicated reason for the odd numbers that I won’t bore you with, but I like it. I’ve tried it out today and it’s working really well for me. (Except that I’m getting about an hour and a half of a late start on the last session.)

On the weekends, I’m just going to eliminate the middle session and move the last session to 7pm (8pm when needed). That means most of my weekend days will be completely free from around 9:36am–7pm for getting out, reading, or taking up a new hobby if I want. :D And of course, if I have other plans, I’ll just pick the two most convenient session times for the day.

This is actually going to lead to more writing time in a day than I usually ever come close to, so it’s going to be interesting to see how much actual timed writing I get.

Theoretically, this schedule could allow me to average about 24,700 words a week. That means I could not write for eleven and a half weeks out of the year and still make the one million. So … breathing room! Which we all know is a definite necessity.

I am sincerely hoping this schedule will help me stay on track in 2014.

I’m making a commitment here and now to stick to this schedule in 2014—no rethinking, reconfiguring, recalculating—getting rid of all the baggage that comes with having to make decisions every single day* about how and when I’m going to get to my writing. This is a near perfect schedule for what’s going on in my life right now. I think this is going to be grand. :)

Still, I’m very afraid this goal is way too huge for me, and I’m not going to allow myself to feel like a failure if I only get partway there. :D But boy, I love this huge goal!

*I struggle with this kind of thing all the time. 2014 is the year I tackle this head on! I plan to come up with more rules for myself and my life this year to eliminate as much of this needless, repetitive decision-making as possible. I’m actually thinking of setting alarms on my phone to trigger me to do certain things at certain times—you know, train myself, lol. :D I’ve already set the alarms for the writing times. :)