A typical morning for me includes, in sequence:

• Waking up (shocker, I know)
• Coffee
• Checking email, Facebook, LibraryThing, blog feed, Twitter, various forums I’m members of
• Reviewing stories for Flash Me
• Wandering about online
• Opening various work pieces & staring at them for awhile
• At 10am, the bird gets woken up & fed
• Rinse & repeat with the checking email, etc sequence…

So when do I get around to actually writing fiction? Well, more often than not, I don’t. I usually only get fresh fiction writing done on days that I head to our local cafe and sit down determined to type. I have excellent focus there, and I always get lots done. But as I’ve been trying to reorient and reorganize myself this fall, I had to take a hard look at how my time was spent and admit that one or two afternoons a week just isn’t going to cut it. I have too many ideas, too many aspirations, to produce so little.

I thought about NaNoWriMo. Every November, I manage to punch out 50,000 words in a month — how is it that I can manage to produce so much in that one month, and then fall off drastically for the rest of the year? Unacceptable.

At the urging of my husband, and prodding of my own heart, today I started a new plan. I’m taking a page out of James Scott Bell’s book, and am going to try and get my writing done in the morning. According to his Twitter feeds, he always writes 500 words in the morning, no matter what. His daily quota is 1000 words, so if he can get 500 done at the very beginning of the day, then getting the second 500 is a much less daunting task when the entire remainder of the day stretches out before him.

I agree! And while I may be bleary eyed, cranky, fuzzy-headed, and rather immobile in the mornings, for whatever reason, that’s the time my Muse loves best. Maybe that’s because my Self isn’t fully conscious yet, so she’s able to communicate with me best before my left brain takes over for the rest of the day.

Today was day #1 of the plan. The goal is 1000 words in the morning, and then even if I get precious little accomplished during the rest of the day… at least I’ll have that 1000 words to be proud of, and which will accumulate over time. If for some reason my Muse sleeps in one of these mornings, that 1000-word quota can be transferred to my ebook writing or SEO article creation. It doesn’t matter what… I just need to produce, and do it at a time that I know works best for my own mind & body.

Some people work best at night, or in the evenings after dinner. Some work best on weekends. Everyone is different, so my question for today is, when does your Muse prefer to come out to play?

Tags: morning, motivation, muse, NaNoWriMo