Things I’ve Learned from NaNoWriMo: Your Writing Time

Welcome to post 2 in this series of things I’ve learned from NaNoWriMo! Today’s post will probably be longer than last week’s… 😂

Recap:

Week 1 – Saving Your Work

And also: HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 🎉 I can’t believe that we’ve made it through all of 2018! We’ve been at this new site for almost a year now!

Today’s Goal:

Learn what your writing time is by reading this post
Start trying to find your own

What do I mean when I talk about ‘writing time’?

Well, the obvious answer is that it’s when you write. Which is pretty accurate.

But the writing time I’m talking about is really more than that.

You can literally write any time, any place. (Anyone else getting ‘The Super Sleuths are on the case! RUFF RUFF!” going through your head? 😂 Does anyone else know what show that was?)

But when you’re trying to write 50,000 words in 30 days, your writing time must become something that’s practically sacred. It’s your time to pound out those words. The best way for you to get people to leave you alone during your writing time is if they know when it is. Which means you’re either going to yell at everyone not to bother you, or they’re just going to get used to you writing at the same time of day.

The latter is the one we’re talking about today.

How do you go about choosing a writing time for yourself?

My best tip is actually to try out different times of the day. Even after you find something that works, make sure to keep trying out other times once and while. You may find something even better for you.

Your optimal writing time is when your mind is alive and flowing with the words. After a while of writing at the same time of day, your mind will start becoming better at being ready to write at that point in time of day, which is why it’s such a good idea to write at the same time of day.

At first, when I did this, my writing time was after I was done eating breakfast, had a cup of coffee with me, and before school started. Throughout the whole month, I always wrote at this time, but it wasn’t really my prime writing time.

So, at first, I found my prime time was the evening. Around 7:30 (but usually closer to 8:00) and on. Whenever I wrote at night, I usually stayed up until 9:00. I found that my exhausted head, after a long day of school and wanting to write, didn’t judge the words I wrote down as much. I could write crazy things, jokes that weren’t even good, and I’d still love it.

But while this felt like my prime writing time, it wasn’t exactly good for my health, considering how I kept getting to bed later.

I ended up trying different times. I would write when I was done my school, and after a few times, found my best writing time. I cannot pinpoint the time exactly, seeing as I wasn’t totally paying attention to what time it was at the time. (That’s a lot of ‘time’s in one sentence…) But I’m mostly sure it wasn’t somewhere around 3:00-4:00 in the afternoon. This is not to say that I usually end at that time of day! This was a special case since I knew what we learning in Social that week really well (ecological footprint) and didn’t have to take as many notes.

But anyway!

Whenever I wrote at this time of day, the words just flowed and poured out of me. You know how on Day 28 I wrote 6,589 words? Yeah. That was because I wrote at that time of day.

That’s why you need your own optimal writing time. That way, you can work for the same amount of time, and get more work done. It’s just a thing that I’ve noticed over the past year: some writers say that they write well at so-and-so time, while others say at some other time. And after NaNoWriMo, I finally figured it out. 😉