Since my job sabbatical has kept me from enjoying the company of fine writers, I’ve noticed a dramatic (okay not that dramatic but noticeable) shift in my writing schedule. From an early morning writer, I’ve now been converted into an evening one.
It’s a bit of a surprise. I had always prided myself to being able to beat the sun in waking up by falling out of bed (it’s amazing how trying to save one’s nose from landing butter side down works better than coffee). Then spend the next hourish or so in front of my laptop, propped upright by a combination of sunlight and YouTube music and typing until the synapses from my teeth have finally reached my brain, poking me to go brush my teeth and stuff cereal down my gob. I got (mostlyish) decent writing during that time.
Morning writing made sense; many of my contemporaries were early birdies, pounding out a page or two of writing then spend the rest of the day positively beaming in writerly glow, and I beamed along with them. Late nights were for kids doped up on too much candy who grew up to be college frat boys surviving on Gatorade and thumb exercise doing videogame blitzes and slept past noon.
Then I asked a writerly friend of mine when he writes. His answer? He’s nocturnal. He exaggeratedly works until he can see the sun again and wakes up at noon. Slacker? No because he isn’t letting the brain fluids leak out over a flashy screen and game controller, he’s an editor for an online magazine and late at night is how he ticks. So I tried a switch.
Now that I finish work late it’s an easy transition to meld into writing around the hours hovering around midnight. And I’m happy, well sorta mostlyish happy. Instead of getting my body to start, it’s holding it together with new ways to abuse the English language and the smooth jazz of seeing words run along a page to stop my eyelids from collapsing under the weight of ideas.
So this is where I have a curiosity you lot can itch. What’s your favourite time to write? Do you write before the daily grind of traffic jams, checking email, lunch with coworkers comes roaring in or late evening when the stress is winding away and you are free for some me time.
My hypothesis is that there’s never a definitive time. That is we are always searching for the time when our brain’s on a groove to dedicate the time the will the energy to sit that ass down and put pen on paper or fingertips on keyboard. So to add to morning and evening polling, who doesn’t have a set schedule?
Poll below
If computer’s out of ink, ink it.
Still working on a snappy line.
By Joshua P’ng, a North York Writer
p.s. I’m thinking of starting the North York Writers Facebook group in order to post our meetings as events to encourage more people to come. What’s your opinion?
Newsflash of the day: Canadian Reads winner Joseph Boyden is from North York, woo hoo!
