Hubby and I were talking about this the other night. I’ve been doing some major reorganizing around yonder Hoffman Haus. While I do my best writing in the early morning, 6-7AM, I do my best cleaning/organizing in the evening. I’m not sure why I’m wired this way. But if I try to do laundry or whatever in the morning, I get distracted WAY to easily. Every shiny object pops up, vying for my attention.
My inner monologue ends up going something like this:
“I should do laundry. There are dishes in the sink. I need a cup of coffee. Why is there crud stuck to the inside of this cup? We should try a different brand of soap. I should feed the cat. The plants outside need water. Get out of my way, dog! Go lay down! I need to get ready for work. Does my car need gas? I don’t have to leave for another hour and a half. Do we have any English muffins left in the fridge? I should eat breakfast. Do I have any clean pants to wear? I should really do a load of laundry.”
But at night, I’m too tired to think. If I plan on doing a load of laundry, that’s what I do. There’s no rambling dialog inside my head. Throw clothes in washer. Boom! That’s it.
However, the opposite seems to be true, when it comes to my writing. All that inner morning chatter is incredibly useful. I come up with ideas. I have a place to channel the weirdness that is me. If I try to write at night, I end up staring at the screen, then heading straight to the Internet. My mind can’t focus on creative tasks in the evening.
JULI HOFFMAN 
If I didn’t have a full time job, my best writing time would probably be late morning, maybe 9 or 10. By that time, I would have had my coffee and be ready to settle down. Since I do work 8-5, I’m kind of forced to write either during lunch or in the evenings after work. So I just adapt to that. Not my best time, but that’s what I have.
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I sometimes jot down plot ideas in my car on my lunch break. I always carry a small notebook…just in case. 🙂
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I don’t consider someone a writer unless they do carry a notebook and unlike JK Rowling a working pen. I do my best writing when I feel like it. Could be first thing in am or waaayy late at night. As for housework…what’s that???
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LOL! I’m in trouble then as I don’t have a notebook or a working pen 😉 I usually just say “I am going to write” and then write, sadly there is rarely as much time for this as I would like…. 😦 I’m with you on the housework, LOL!
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That’s okay, Joleene. Carrying a notebook doesn’t make you a writer or not. I only write on a computer since my aching hands won’t let me write longhand. You know we are both writers. LOL
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Oh crap! No working pen. So THAT’S why it’s been taken me so long… 😉
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I have actually been contemplating this, too, as I have tried time and again to find a schedule – you know, like they tell you to. “Oh write for two hours, then do this, then do that then…” bleh. This does not work for me. I’m an all or nothing kinda gal and I much prefer to have a writing day, then a drawing day then once a month a cleaning day (or every two months or when it’s so filthy I can’t stand it, whatever 😉 Yeah, I’m not winning clean house awards!) I keep trying to do this “a little of this and a little of that” and pretty soon I’ve spent six hours on whatever I was only supposed to be doing for one. This is the same for the book cover work, too. I prefer to just start in and zoom through it, doing nothing else until I am finished. Alas I never seem to get finished…. but I digress. So now I am trying to figure out how to make that method – which is really the most productive method for me- fit into the way modern society does things. *hint* haven’t worked that out yet. I just know the little bit here and little bit there isn’t working at all 😦
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So far…it’s sort of freeing, working around my weird internal clock instead of against it. The other morning, I was looking around at my messy house, and usually I’d feel that twinge of guilt, because I’d rather be writing than cleaning. But I HATE to clean, so even if I didn’t write, it wasn’t as though I’d have been scrubbing something instead. Anyways, I started to feel “the guilt,” but then I looked at the clock. I don’t get a lot of free time, so I HAVE to be productive with it. I reminded myself that mornings aren’t productive for cleaning! Mornings are for writing. I stopped feeling guilty/selfish, wrote for an hour, and actually did tackle some of the housework, later on in the day. So instead of feeling like a big failure, I ended the day feeling as though I’d accomplished something, plus I actually tackled a “crafty” painting project with the kiddo, a new shelf in his room to put all his action figures and treasures on. 🙂 I’ve been putting that project off for at least 3 months! I just need to hang it up, and I can cross that off the list of formerly abandoned crafts and such. 😉
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