8-5-89 . . . This afternoon I finished reading Marcia Yudkin’s book Freelance Writing for Magazines and Newspapers: Breaking In Without Selling Out [New York: Harper & Row, 1988]. Yudkin has a Ph.D. degree in philosophy from Cornell University and spent several years teaching philosophy. She is now a freelance writer. I found the following passage interesting (page 104):
Establishing the habit of writing regularly, regardless of your mood or other responsibilities or temptations, is probably the best favor you can do yourself if you’re serious about writing. The habit will bear the most fruit if you can schedule it for your peak thinking period, that time of day when your mind is most energetic and nimble.
My sentiments exactly! In fact, I’ve written before in these pages about my writing habits. I’m most lucid during the morning hours, with coffee at my side, so that’s when I write. If it’s not my journal, it’s an article, my dissertation, lecture notes, or correspondence. Don’t ask me why I’m a morning person; I just am. I’ve discovered when I write best and built my schedule around it. As for the other part of Yudkin’s passage, about writing regularly, I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been keeping a journal for nearly eleven years. Sometimes I write every other day, and there were times when I fell several weeks behind, but I always caught up. Depressed or elated, I write. Sunny or gloomy outside, I write. I write!
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 