Qi I'm actually on campus haha !! But I live on the main campus which has the science and law/business buildings, and humanities are in the city center, and there's only two accommodations buildings in the center so too much people apply, and it's given to master/doctorate students mostly. In car where I live is only 15min away, and in first year I only had a 20min bus ride, but the city constructed a tramway so in my 2nd year they changed bus lines and now I have to get a bus which stops in the whole city instead of doing a straight line and after that I have to walk 15 min lol that is complicated .
We recently had a down-sizing, which ended up with me losing 20% of my time and salary...but still being expected to do the same job. In order to suit the company and myself, I arranged to NOT take off one day a week, but rather to work a three-week month and then have a week off at once. Part of my job entails a weekly report, so I told the recipient of this report that every fourth week it would be coming from a colleague. The answer was jealousy of my having this week off. Not sympathy at my reduced salary.
I really struggle to find a space in the day to write. I have three kids, 1, 5 and 6 years old, the older two are home schooled presently, work sporadic hours most days, could be two hours or eight hours a day. Every moment I'm not working I'm with the kids. I get up at 4am if I can, that's pretty literally my only time, but if I get to bed late, which is comon if I work late, then I can't cope. If I don't get my writing time I feel mentally unhealthy lol. But sleep is essential, I've got to get at least 5 hours or I don't cope. Gaming?! lol wow I forgot how much time I had as a teenager. Ah the time we take for granted. I don't watch tv. I hardly have time to check emails, don't get on facebook more than once a month, and thats to reply to something important, and only get to read while riding in the car or sitting on the toilet lol! If my husband is driving us to work I can sometimes write on the way but we live on an insanely windy road so I have to stop the laptop from shooting off my lap at times lol. I have been working on my novel for 6 years because I just don't have enough time!!
Great thread. I used to work for the government so worked seven months a year, surfed for the other five months, looked after our kids sometimes. Now working in the private sector I am only entitled to 32 days a year of holiday. Normally I write when I get home at 3 /4pm, or I have a sleep first.
Since I can't really plan time to write, I write when ever I can. A big chunk of what I write is actually done on my iphone( I'm even writing this on an iphone). When I get ideas I write them down in the 'notes' feature and later email them to myself. I also use a browser based writing software that can be accessed from any computer. It's not as broad featured as the software on my home computer, but it's got the important stuff and it's free to use.
I work, with commute about ten hours a day. Fortunately, it is a challenging engineering job that I enjoy, so it stimulates me more than enervating me. No matter. Since I drive, when I am in the writing phase (draft is finished, so now mostly edit phase, little creativity required), I like several others, think about my story, my character, what happens next, why? My preferred time is after dinner, when I spend some time with my wife, then retire to my office to write or edit from 7 to about 10. I make it a point to take one or two nights off a week, for sanity's sake. My big bugboo is freecell... I hate the game, but I can't tell you how many hours straight I can play that damned game, to the detriment of getting stuff done!
Pretty self-explanatory, what time of day in a 24 hour period do you write? Do you write better material after a few cups of coffee? Do you prefer mid-day inspiration? Or are you a night-owl? When does inspiration strike you when writing? When are you your most productive? I find I'm better with monotony like editing during the day. On the other hand the words don't flow with as much frequency or quality when trying to just get something down if I do it earlier in the day. Night time is where my creativity thrives. How about y'all?
If I'm not working I start writing about 9 AM and just keep going all day. If I do have to work, then I start writing about 7 PM and keep writing until 10 PM. But sometimes that 10 PM becomes 2 AM.
I write first thing in the morning as well. Get my coffee, check social media, smoke a cigarette, and get going until I feel stuck or tired. Normally until lunch, but sometimes it's spilled over. Occasionally, I'll have inspiration strike at night, but my house is too crazy to focus at night. So I just jot down any new ideas and work on them the next morning.
It may be my anxiety, but I think I may write better at night because during the day my mind wanders to the littlest thing I "should be doing." I should be exercising, I should be organizing those files, I could get some laundry done, etc. I know I could get them done before or after, but it just sticks there in my mind and won't go away.
Sometimes I do that too. If I know I have housework to do, I do it before I write. Most of the time, it only takes an hour or so then I can get to writing. But laundry will definitely sit in the dryer until I'm done.
I used to be able to write while having a few cups of Joe, but now it only seems to work at night. Not sure how that works out. At least I can squeeze a few hundred to a thousand words or so out regularly.
Easy to say. 4am-7am, 12am-1pm, 5pm-8/9pm (morning, lunch-break, afternoon). Pretty much everytime when I am not at work or at sleep But I cherish my coffee in the morning!
The only time I can get anything productive done is at night. It doesn't matter if it's homework, art, cleaning, or writing. There is something about the day time that just saps my energy and nothing ever gets done.
Often in the morning, from about 6.30AM to 7.30AM. I find I fare pretty well at editing my stuff at dawn as my thoughts seem to be at their clearest then. New ideas often strike me during the daytime at work. If I have the time I'll write them down and work them out further around 19PM to about 21/22PM. In the weekends, depending on the time I rise, it's usually the first 3 hours of the day and in the nighttime.
Our brains seem to work similarly At nighttime when I just relax and before actually going to sleep I get ideas too. Or just going somewhere with my bike or on foot, or in the train. If I just let my mind drift when there is something my body does without too much thinking about it. But I have to be careful when biking, and do this only on footpaths and not on the street. Other cars can be dangerous
I really don't have a set time. I literally just carry a little pocket composition notebook with me and a fine point pen and choose to write instead of being stuck on my cellphone on the bus, or any kind of situation I have time to kill. Takes me 1.5 hours to get to work, and another back, so I have 3 hours of time to do so any given day at the very least. Then when I get home, I boil it down on my computer and do a first revision while typing it up. You go through quite a composition books, but they are fairly cheap. I also tend to write quite a bit when sitting at home with nothing to do.
If I'm not working, I love getting up early and having 1K written before 9am. Then a break for most of the day, then back in the late afternoon and another few thousand words before bed. If I'm working? Whenever I can find a moment.
Yeah, that's me too. I think my brain works better after a good night's sleep, and—very important, this—before anybody starts talking to me. When I was knee-deep in my first draft (and still working) I used to get up at 4am and write for at least 3 hours before getting ready to go to work. Of course if you do this, you have to go to bed early as well, but that's not hard when you WANT to write. I also find that if I go for a long-ish walk through familiar territory (meaning I don't need to think about which way to go or dodge a lot of traffic) where I'm unlikely to meet people who want to talk to me, that's also a good starter. I can write any time of the day if I take a walk first. And the act of walking (unlike the sleep) produces amazing insights into story problems as well. Weird. I cannot write (or think) through verbal interference, though—as my nearest and dearest have discovered, to their chagrin. I become really horrible when I'm constantly interrupted. Hence the 4am start, when everybody else is in bed.
So true. People talking often rip me out of my thought process and seem to cause some kind of blockade. It's frustrating
Yeah, I think it's because your verbal-processing brain is forced to go down two tracks at once. And the person yapping in your face or asking questions that demand answers is harder to ignore than what you were envisioning via your imagination. So they dominate, and kill the other track stone dead. The problem of hearing competing words is why I cannot write to music that has any kind of lyrics to it. I don't write to music much anyway, and when I do it's to drown out other noises. However, it's got to be string quartet music or soft guitar music—something with an even tempo and sound level that doesn't command my conscious attention. I might be able to listen to music sung in a foreign language as well, but I've never tried that.
I actually write best when listening to music with words. The theory I have is that I only 'hear' the words which fit in with the frame of mind/MC I am currently writing about and the tone of the story. Words which don't fit are just ignored. Yep, I can concentrate and block out pretty well Which is kind of embarassing when people have to tap you on the shoulder because you don't hear that they are talking to you @Greenwood : Yep I get that one too. But apparently I have such a vacant look on my face and even over the phone people get it that I am far away in my thoughts .. so they stop talking. I don't even really actively have to do something that they go away, they do that on their own
I find it embarrassing that I can't do that at all. Good for you. It sounds as if the music actually inspires you and helps you focus your thoughts. Damn. I wish I could do that!
Oh yes *sigh* music just eggs me on. It acts as a kind of amplifier, making me even more susceptible to the emotional impact of a scene I am writing. Which can be good or bad. Good in writing, bad in trying to read/edit it later. In editing the music is still there but set to the background, in original writing I sometimes like to feel the beat with my whole body. Just the way my brain is wired I guess
