“What Is The Morning Writing Effect?”, 2011-05-11 (; backlinks):
Many writers anecdotally report they write best first thing early in the morning, apparently even if they are not morning people. Do they, and why?
Ericsson 199331ya notes that many major writers or researchers prioritized writing by making it the first activity of their day, often getting up early in the morning, working only a few hours and then spending the rest of the day on other things. This is based largely on writers anecdotally reporting they write best first thing early in the morning, apparently even if they are not morning people, although there is some additional survey/software-logging evidence of morning writing being effective. Ericsson was wrong about many things, so I wondered how true this was.
I compile all the anecdotes of writers discussing their writing times I have come across thus far. Do they, and why?
Preliminary results from ~400 writers and assorted surveys shows that Ericsson’s trend is, at best, a loose one. Many authors work later in the day, or at night, or claim much longer hours.
Informally, I do observe an intriguing tendency for fiction writers to write early in the morning, and to describe an almost dream-like altered state of consciousness which enables their fiction-writing.