Morning Shift? Mid-Shift? Late-shift?

JENN McKINLAY: When I first started writing, I worked around the Hooligans’ schedule. I woke up at 5 AM and wrote until the boys got up at 7 AM. I started again when they napped, which was usually from 12 PM to 2 PM. And then I crammed in two more hours from 8 PM to 10 PM. It’s amazing what you can get done when you have very limited time. 

Once the boys started school, I wrote from 8 AM to 2 PM and then again in my car while I chauffeured them to their various activities and waited in the car or the nearest coffee shop.

Those days are long gone and I thought I’d be more disciplined once they left home. I am not. I seem to squander my time in the morning and now work a mid-shift from 2 PM to 10 PM. I would make it earlier if I could but I can’t seem to shift. So long as the work gets done, I don’t suppose it matters, but I still wish I could get my butt in the seat earlier in the day.

How about you, Reds? What are your optimum writing hours? Has it changed over the years?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Jenn, so interesting!  That’s exactly my schedule.

When I was full time on TV, I was all about nights and weekends and vacations. Thats all the time I had. Now, my life is different, hurray,but my schedule still reflects that long time job.

 My theory, for me at least, is that my  schedule definitely comes from all those years of working for  TV news–my writing metabolism gears up to be ready for  the 6 o'clock news, and then the 11 o'clock news.  Mornings, I do admin, and socials, and coffee, and thinking and procrastinating. Then, after lunch, I think: GO SISTER. And work for about five hours. If I am lucky. I just have to get my 1000 words done. 

But then, sometimes I’ll stop in my office on the way up to bed, and tell Jonathan–I’m just going to say good night to the book.. ANd  I open my manuscript, abd whoosh, I’m back into it, and go upstairs sometime  after  midnight.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Wow, this is so interesting, Jenn and Hank. You’ve described me and my schedule, too. I have never been a morning writer, although I’ve castigated myself for years for not being someone who gets up at the crack of dawn to sit down at the computer and actually write sensible things. But sorry, not happening here. I always have morning chores (at least six months of the year including watering) and then I’m hungry. Then there’s email and catching up on stuff. It’s usually about noon by the time I clear the decks and focus on the WIP. I’ll take a mid-afternoon break, then go back to work until 7ish when I have to quit and deal with dinner. It also often means we end up eating really late, but sometimes, like Hank, I just have to “check something” and will go back to the computer for a last few minutes. I also take a notebook and pen upstairs to jot down any bath/before sleep ideas.

RHYS BOWEN: I have always been a morning person-forced on my by four children who had to get to morning swim practice at six am!  When I was juggling with getting four kids off to school I’d write as soon as I’d dropped off the youngest at pre-school and keep going until I had to pick him up again at mid day. When they all left home I adopted the routine I have now: wake early, usually before seven, check my emails etc, make a cup of tea, then start writing. I break off later for breakfast then continue until I’ve done the right number of words for the day.

The afternoon is for all the secretarial stuff: checking with assistant and publicist, answering fan mail, exing out all those stupid scams I get on a daily basis.  I too have a notebook in the bedroom because it’s quite normal to wake at three and think “she’d never have said that” and have to jot down how the scene should have gone. 

LUCY BURDETTE: I am in Rhys‘s camp, better at writing in the morning. This has been disrupted lately because I’ve been doing multiple yoga classes as well as Pickleball and all that takes place in the morning. So I’ve had to shift, which is not great for my poor brain. Right at this moment, for example, it’s almost 1 PM. I’ve been to killer Yoga, and a Pickleball clinic, and had lunch. Now I’m making a cup of iced tea and going up to my computer to see what I can do! Fingers crossed!

HALLIE EPHRON: This is reminding me of when I had two little kids at home and was working writing training for high tech. I had a computer (big hulking thing) at home and I’d bring my drafts in to work on a floppy disk (remember those?) trying to get there early so I could send my attest draft to the printer and grab it before anyone else arrived. The day didn’t have enough hours in it and I was perennially sleep deprived. And still I got more done than I do today in copious spare time.

How about you, Readers? What is your most productive time of day? Morning? Afternoon? Evening?