Writer friends, I know this has happened to you. You have that block of time to write, protected from all the world save some kind of zombie and/or asteroid-crashing-to-earth Apocalypse. Spouse, children, dog, co-workers, whatever normal pesky real life (and I say that with all the love in the world, cuz we love them all) things normally get priority, they’re gone. It’s just you and your computer and all those ideas always popping into your head when you’re with all of the above mentioned. But…then…you just can’t.
You want to write, but your brain’s foggy and your eyes are droopy and your body’s just not cooperating with its master. Those precious protected minutes tick by and the blinking cursor and empty page space taunt you.
A non-writer friend might say, “Just take a nap.” NO!!! But, but it’s the only hour I have all weekend.
Or sometimes it’s the reverse. Like it’s seriously late, well past your bedtime and you have to do that whole real job thing tomorrow, but you’re on that writer’s high and your brain just won’t shut up and the ideas keep flowing and flowing. An amazing feeling…at the time…but not so much the next morning. I shall dub it “writer’s hangover.” Oh, there’s my next meme! So stay tuned for that one.
Writer friends, what do you do when you want to write, but your body doesn’t cooperate? Make some coffee? Try to power through? Just succumb to it and take a nap?
Friends who did NaNoWriMo, does this happen even more in November as you’re trying to crank out those 50,000 words?
Sarah J. Carlson 
I know for me that sometimes the nap is what I need and then I wake up with new and better ideas.
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Yep, totally true! Going for a run can help get me kick-started, too!
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Nice post. Totally get this! There’s no choice though, it’s write when you’re tired or don’t write all!
Having said that, it’s gone 1am right now… time for bed!
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Hahaha thanks! That’s totally what I do, try to power through. Pick something to work on that takes a bit less of a fresh brain. I also have a tendency to stay up past one am too, so feel you there, too, lol! Good night!
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… it’s twenty mins later and I’m still up… okay, I really mean it this time; good night!
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God, GO TO BED!! 😛
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Oh, how I understand this. I usually have the mornings to myself while my husband is at work (as long as my pups will allow). I also usually spend those mornings furiously making coffee on my Keurig and trying to stay awake.
Fast forward to that night, and you will find me awake in the wee hours, trying not to type so furiously that I wake my husband up.
And then I wake up the next morning and ask myself the same question, “Why am I so tired?” I almost feel like that scheduled time is there to taunt me xD
Great post, by the way! It really does sum it up – people who don’t write just don’t understand. I’ve had my husband come up to me and say, “But NaNo is over. You’re DONE writing, right?”
No, poor husband… I still need those few hours to myself to work on writing.
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Hahaha this is me! Early mornings, late nights. And my husband 😛 Actually, my husband has stopped asking for the most part. Seriously, writing hangover. That’s my next meme haha. Thanks for commenting and glad you enjoyed the post!
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Oh my, oh yes. Been there, done that, from both directions. I was on a roll a couple of months back, so I dropped a music group thinking I could be done with this WIP by Thanksgiving without staying up all night. Hah! Now I sit there during what used to be rehearsal times, wrestling over the best order of events in the “muddle” of the book, the puzzle pieces of the story dancing around the edges of my mind, refusing to link together in the best coherent whole. I’m sure that as soon as December hits with all its extra events I’ll be back on that writer’s roll, sleep-deprived.
But as far as how I power through: If I’m tired and on a roll, I stop in the middle of a scene, knowing what’s going to happen next, so I can start up quickly next time. Sometimes sleep helps figure out what’s beyond that scene.
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Lol this is me! I thought I’d be querying one of my MSs IN SUMMER. Let’s just say that didn’t happen, and I just cut four chapters from the beginning! The pressure and the drive is just so much worse when you keep thinking you’re almost done, lol. Feel you! And it is amazing how the brain keeps working on things even when we’ve moved on to sleeping or doing more mundane tasks!
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My only real problem has been when I’m sick or pregnant. Can not write when carrying a baby in my belly. I don’t know why. But since I don’t plan on anymore kids, I only have to worry about the occasional flu. If I really am too tired to write, and that doesn’t happen often, I’ll do something else “productive” like research, or reading about writing or reading other people’s books to learn from that. Or maybe sleep. Sometimes you just have to sleep.
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Lol this is true. Pesky body requiring sleep to survive 😛 Interesting about not being able to write while pregnant. Hope that doesn’t happen to me when I move to that stage of life!
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“Can not write when carrying a baby in my belly.” I didn’t try to write when I was, but it makes sense somehow. Pregnancy is an altered state in so many ways! Along with early months of infancy with its chronic sleep deprivation. But lucky you for being so consistent the rest of the time. You probably know how rare a blessing this is, for a writer!
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I joked with my husband that I thought about writing during my last 2 pregnancies, but didn’t start writing until after the baby was born. Since I’m thinking about another book, it seems proper I should be pregnant. The joke is, neither of us want more children, so I guess just the book baby this time! 🙂
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Hahaha!
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