Writing When Tired

So last night I did a little experiment. I decided that it had been about long enough since I'd written anything, and despite the fact that I was exhausted and didn't really feel like writing, I opened up the next chapter to be edited in my novel and started working on it.

Unfortunately, it happened to be one that needed a fair amount of work. I had to re-do a couple of scenes, and when I got to them my enthusiasm began to flag. But I pushed through and rewrote them anyway, despite being conscious that I wasn't at my best. I figured at worst I would get some ideas down and could come back to revisit them the next day.

So this afternoon I reopened that chapter again when I was fresher and had a look at what I'd done. To my surprise, it wasn't bad. Sure it needed work, but not appreciably more work than my revisions usually do (When making major changes I generally go in once and make the big change--like writing in scene a segment of the book previously told through narration--then come back and make sure that the language, pacing, and structure of it are up to snuff a bit later).

So I learned (or more accurately, re-learned--I knew this before, I had just convinced myself otherwise) that I don't write worse when I'm tired, it's just a more difficult process. I don't know if this holds true for everyone, but I think it's worth finding out about yourself--seeing as being tired is pretty ubiquitous and being able to write when tired can be helpful when you're under a deadline.