Remaking Your Writing Schedule...Again

Ok, I got pregnant and therefore so tired that I couldn't hold my eyelids open with toothpicks to write. Then add to that the insult of insomnia when I finally did get to go to bed at night! My writing was suffering (not to mention my life); I didn't touch my novels for months.

I have changed my writing schedule multiple times over the past 2 years since i started seriously freelancing over 2 years ago. I've even written a few blogs before about time management and ways I had to eek out some time to write in my life as a stay-at-home mom with 2 pre-school children: Mastering Time Management to Meet Writing Goals, When All Your Time to Write Disappears... and How to Find More Time to Write.

Writing truly is something I have to squeeze in around the edges of other things--and those other things keep changing. I had a good thing for a long time in getting up at 6 with my husband, making him breakfast, then writing until the kids for up around 8--and then my husband got a different job that allowed him to sleep in later. I found it didn't make sense to get up at 6 myself, write for a bit, be interrupted to make breakfast, then try to get back to writing a bit before the kids were up. Also, somehow my husband making noise at 7 registered in my kids' brains and they more often than not got up, whereas doing all this at 6 didn't stir them. So that writing schedule bit the dust. Changes in my husband's schedule have dictated the most changes to my writing time. When he started traveling extensively, for weeks at a time, internationally, then I found myself with a lot of writing time, particularly after the kids were in bed for the night, but conversely, when he was home, I found myself with none. But I guess what the optimist should see is that I've always weathered the changes, finding a way to love the writing enough that I could get up at 6 to write or stay up to midnight to write--despite any prior convictions about what time of day was my most creative, or that I was naturally a night person and couldn't conceive of writing early in the morning!

So, enter pregnancy. I was so commonly falling asleep in the afternoons, even while sitting up, that my years' long habit of writing during my kids' naptime was impossible. Even when I could eat and drink to make myself stay awake, I couldn't summon anything worth keeping when it came to writing. And by the time I finally got my kids to bed at night, I was ready to drop, so writing at night never happened either. And the whole cycle was perpetuated by insomnia that struck in the wee hours of morning, so I started each day exhausted.

But I've now found a workable system by actually giving in to what my body kept trying to tell me. I succumb to the afternoon nap; in fact, I plan on it. When I sleep in the afternoon, two great things occur: 1) I am alert in the late evenings after my children are asleep, so I write! and 2) the insomnia problem seems to have gone away; when I go to bed at midnight or later I sleep through! So here's to my new writing schedule and meeting my new deadline for completing my novel! (A Baby Changes Everything)

Articles I've written:

What is a Disposable Diaper Made of Anyway?

Firefighters Fight to Rid Kids' Sleepwear, Baby Gear, Furniture of Toxic Flame Resistant Chemicals

Why is The United States Reacting Differently Than Other Governments to Cell Phone Risk Study Results?

When Miscarriage Means Labor