In the early days of this feed I talked about the freedom to set our own schedules. About how we were no longer tied to the schedule of our employer and could choose to create at whatever time worked best for us. About how we could write or paint or cook in the middle of the night if we wanted, if that was what fed our creativity.
Within reason, of course. You can’t practice the tuba at 3 a.m. if you’re living in an apartment. At least you can’t without creating a serious conflict with neighbors who are still at the mercy of their employer’s schedule. And you can’t rototill the garden at 6 on Sunday morning, unless you want the neighbors at your door with torches and pitchforks – metaphorically speaking (I hope!).
But in that first flush of considering all the possibilities, all the opportunities, I looked ahead to having the freedom to determine my own best schedule.
Then came two-and-a-half years of not retiring, not really. So while I thought I had all that freedom when I was setting my own schedule and often working from home, I was still working within the framework of someone else’s schedule.
Finally, after more than three years from my initial retirement date, I am completely and officially retired. Learn from my bad example: Don’t let them reel you back in!
This should be the end of the road. Beyond that you make your own path!
Now that I had finally achieved that elusive retirement status, it was time to start setting my own schedule, time to create whenever I wanted, whenever worked best for me. Hooray!! This is what I had been waiting for, seemingly forever.
Reaching this point, however, has brought me face-to-face with a harsh reality:
After nearly 70 years of following the schedules of others – school, jobs, parents, spouses, kids – I have absolutely no idea what time works best for me. I have absolute freedom to set my own hours, and I DON’T KNOW what hours to set.
Writing is not new to me. I’ve published nearly 20 books, and dozens of short stories. I’ve written non-fiction, tie-in fiction, mystery, romance, adventure. I’ve been an in-house technical writer, creating content to order on someone else’s schedule. I’ve written to outside deadlines, and internal ones.
But I have always fit the writing around other demands: work, my spouse’s schedule, my kids, medical appointments, other family obligations – you know the drill, you’ve lived it, just as I have. I couldn’t write whenever I wanted; I wrote when I could carve out time.
That worked for me when I had those outside demands. If the only time I had to create was at night and on weekends, that’s when I created, and I was successful at it. But was it the best time or was it just the only time?
I’m looking for the right time, but it’s elusive.
Now that I have retired it is theoretically the point where I can create at the best time, and I am floundering around trying to figure that out.
This was brought home to me by a post from my dear friend, Kristine Kathryn Rusch. In her blog post on Assessing Pandemic Damage she talks about how her habits and perceptions changed during the lockdown, and how that affected her creative endeavors. (Honestly, if you are interested in writing, and especially in the business of writing, you should be reading everything she writes. But I digress…)
One thing she talks about is how she shifted her writing time for some very practical concerns, and how that affected her output. As a professional with many years experience, she knows what works for her, and when she was able to shift her schedule back to mornings she found that her output increases significantly. She knows what works for her, and she used that knowledge to find her optimal schedule. The shift, both away from and back to mornings, wasn’t without bumps along the way, but it had the desired effect.
That little piece from her much longer post hit a nerve. She was able to say, quite confidently, “I’m a morning writer …” and I suddenly realized that I didn’t know what kind of writer I am.
My husband bought me a vintage fingerprint kit for Christmas. Do you think this was what he had in mind?
Was I a morning writer who just never had morning time because I wasn’t an early riser who could get in a writing session before work? Could I be a morning writer if “morning” could start at 10 instead of 6?
Was I an afternoon writer who just didn’t know it because I was at work in the afternoon five days a week, or an evening writer who would be better off spinning tales instead of cooking dinner and doing household chores in the hours after work?
Was I a night-time writer? I always assumed I was, since that was the time I had to write. After work and dinner and maybe some household chores, I would haul myself to the computer at 10 p.m. and write like crazy until it was time to grab a quick shower and fall into bed for work the next day. I know there were days when I wrote 5, 10, sometimes as much as 15 pages in those hours, racing against the clock and my deadlines, stopping to weigh the value of momentum at 1 a.m. against the looming morning alarm clock. And on the nights momentum won I knew I would pay for it in the morning.
Which brings me to now.
Now I am struggling to find the time that works for me, and I don’t have any idea exactly what that might be. I have been writing in the afternoons, then doing needlework (knitting ,beadwork, etc.) in the evenings after dinner, but that doesn’t feel like quite the right balance.
I need to do some experimenting, trying out various combinations and schedules. I have joined some friends who do a write-along on Wednesdays, a Zoom call with little to no conversation, just a small group of writers working silently in our own spaces with an almost-invisible connection to each other. That tiny piece of schedule has allowed me to get my posts written early the last two weeks, and that is a good feeling.
Over the next few months there will be some trial-and-error scheduling, some travel, and maybe I can learn something about how I work best. I invite you to come along and I will post updates on what worked and what didn’t, in the hopes I can help you navigate the same issue. And I am sure that many of you have figured out what is right for you, or at least right for now (see above, nights and weekends).
If you have solved the schedule issue for yourself, please share what works for you and how you found that solution. I would love to hear what you learned!