Tag: Debbi Michiko Florence

And what do you do when that window isn’t there?

Debbi Michiko Florence is on a writing roll. If you haven’t been reading her blog or following her on Facebook, you might have missed the fact that she is facing and hitting writing deadlines right & left these days. It’s pretty inspirational to watch!

This morning, she’s got a post up about writing in the mornings and what happened last Friday, when she couldn’t focus and missed that window. Lately, I’ve been watching my son deal with lots of homework and busier days, and I’ve been wondering what–in an ideal world–would be his best working time. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be until after 11:00 in the morning! 🙂

For me, it’s morning. Not early–I’m not a bright-and-chipper, up-before-the-sun kind of person. In my happy place, I roll out of bed at 8:00 or so, have breakfast, and then bring my mug of tea to the computer. Occasionally, I do get a spurt of writing juice after dinner, where a scene just rolls onto the screen–and, oh, I love those times.

The thing is, life is just not always that accommodating. Debbi had a morning where the focus didn’t come—so she pushed herself & got things to work in the afternoon. My son’s school starts before lunchtime (go figure!) every day, and–while he might at some point find out that he does his best work between nine p.m. and midnight, that’s just not going to happen with homework these days. My mornings aren’t seamless flows from bed to computer–I don’t know many moms (and probably not a lot of dads) for whom they are.

So…we make it work. These days, I try to get to my writing as soon as I can after dropping my son off at school. It’s true that, if I get into anything else, even one phone call to schedule an appointment or ten minutes to get laundry moving, my focus shifts from writing to a whole slew of other need-to-dos.

In your ideal world, when would you write? Are you a night owl who gets their words out while everyone else is sleeping? Or are you able to wake up before the birds and get a chapter out? In the real world, when do you carve out the hours to get the best focus you can…to get that time to create?