Best Time of Day to Write?

These days, for me, there isn’t much of a choice.

The answer to this question is: whenever I can.

Mostly my writing happens in little snippets, here and there, an hour or two, three if I’m lucky.

During the week that means at night or some occasional hurried lunch-hour scribbling. On weekends, sometimes I’ll take the kids to grandma’s house and escape to a café for a couple of hours (or however long my laptop battery will last). And sometimes, if at home, I’ll keep the Word doc with my novel open on my computer, returning periodically throughout the day and savoring any and all progress, even if it’s just honing and improving a single paragraph I’ve already revised dozens of times.

But the best, ideal writing time for me is, always has been, morning. Not long after waking up. Post-coffee, pre-shower. When you’re still groggy and not completely awake, when the mind is hazy and receptive, when it’s easier to stave off doubt and despair and keep your internal editor at bay, when the creativity flows better and unexpected things invariably happen, and you’re not so concerned with where you’re going and what’s working/not working—the journey, the words, the sentence you’re working on at that very moment is more than enough to sustain you.