Gather ye round, children. I shall instruct you on writing biorhythm.

What is that you say?

A beautiful time where writing happens and your brain is free and your fingers fly across the air, like they just don't care, as the song goes.

#issathread #threadoclock

Okay, don't quote me cause I am not science-y but this is science-y. Every writer has a biorhythm, a time of day where they are the most creative, productive, and fresh.

For some writers, it's early in the morning.

For some, like yours truly, it's late at night.

If you're a writer you probably noticed you have a natural time of day (necessity aside) where you are in your element. You are living your best writer's and you know that you are on fire.

Every writer and creative for that matter has it. It's not so much the muse. It's you.

We all mess with our biorhythm. i.e. you write because of kids or work or it's the only time it's quiet, etc. So you may not be writing when you are most creative.

However, you can train yourself to be creative during the time you need. But...

...but training yourself BACK to your natural biorhythm is hell. HELL, I tell you.

Example. Me. I was a journalist for 12 years. A newspaper reporter.

Before the gig, my natural rhythm was late at night or EARLY like 2-5 a.m.

When I got into my gig, my biorhythm was thrown all off. I couldn't write in the morning. I couldn't do anything until 3 p.m. (cause the deadline was 5 p.m.) and then I couldn't do anything until after midnight.

When journalism changed to a more 24 hour, get it on the web trade, I was constantly on, forcing myself to write and create all the time. On top of that, I was in an MFA program for...wait for it...creative writing-fiction. So I was writing 24/7

Then moving and new gigs, a whole depressive episode, an attempt, another move, hating myself for a while, learning to love me, remembering what writing was <-- All that happened in the past 5 years. And all that threw my rhythm out of wack.

I have written at different hours...

...and locations. Some worked, some didn't. Blah.

All that to say that I am NOW getting back into my natural writing biorhythm, which is around this time into the night.

But not too late cause a girl gotta work.

So, yeah, creative biorhythms are a thing and so are rituals. Like in the past, I could only write with a baseball cap because the brim helped focus me. Or I would write with a certain candle because the smell was a signal to the brain to create.

Now it's jazz or lo-fi hip hop and depending on what I'm writing it could be my laptop, or my typewriter, or paper and pen. Space is important too.

So all this to say is that you, writer/creative, need to find your rhythm and do your thing. Give yourself grace.

And, yes, it's ironic coming from a person like me who is really hard on herself. But I need to hear it often and so do you.

And just like writing, giving grace is a practice.

Give yourself grace. You're trying. You're trying your best. I see you.

Night, night!