How often do you feel compelled to write? Are you an everyday sort of person or once a week? At what times typically does the mood take you? Are you more productive at 3AM in the morning rather than the afternoon? Presumably most people have constraints on their time, do you find your self jotting notes down in between attending to the kids, or knocking out the odd paragraph on your computer at work while the boss isn't looking?

Where do you write? I found that I'm more productive since I brought a lap top. This has something to do with being able to write in the middle of the night when the mood takes me (as it often does) without turning the lights on and waking my girlfriend, but also being able to expose myself to different stimuli whilst having instant access to a writing medium. Right now - on a bright day - I find the seat by the kitchen window looking out on the garden is a great spot. Though I've written stuff in just about every nook and cranny of my house providing there's a flat surface to park my bum on.

As I said, just curious really. I realise I'm rambling and that's a lot of questions, so feel free to just answer one or any or none.

I've wondered if a laptop would help. I used to have a one-lung laptop word processor---it was easy to pull that baby out and type something up just about any time. Now I have to crawl into my (cramped, cluttered, paper-strewn, and extremely messy) home office and type there.

I know I shouldn't play games THAT often but I do, bad habit I'm forcing myself out of. I'd usually play for 7-8 hours a day, on a good day, but now down to 3-4.

Usually, it's just whenever I feel like it (or whenever I can guilt myself into it), but once in a while, I can force myself to adhere to some kind of program. These times are my most productive, even if what I produce is utter waste.

My medium changes on a whim. Most often, it's a computer, but I go through these phases where I can't write anything unless it's on a typewriter, or on paper. It's weird, I know, but it is what it is.

Likewise, I can usually write with any amount of noise (and will in fact listen to almost anything to drown out my tinnitus while writing), but sometimes, I can't get a word out if there's even the slightest whisper of sound.

Again, it is what it is.

Reading, I find, helps stoke them fires of creativity, but it's been hard finding a good book, lately. I think I'm getting tired of sci-fi/fantasy, which is weird, because it's mostly what I like to write.

I'm in editing mode now, which is a little slower. When I was doing primary writing, I could hammer out a few chapters in a few hours.

I agree with Christine, if I wait until I feel like writing or until I have inspiration, I'll rarely get it. If I sit down and start writing, usually things will come to me.

I try to always have a writing mindset. I try to look at the world and see ideas. One of my best ideas for a novel came from a Russian tabloid. I think it'll be the book I write after this one.

PS: I should probably spell 'write' like 'zzzzz'

"I am a well-established, successful writer, I am a well-established, successful writer, I am a well-established, successful writer."

By the end of three weeks I felt like I should probably just sit back and rest on my laurels.

I write a decent short story, submit it, get an idea for improving it, wait 20 years and then show up here.

I'm hoping to change that so that it becomes a daily activity, even if some days are only a few minutes.

My "black-book" is a little roughly 1.5" x 2" little notebook that is seldom not in my back pocket along with a pen in my front pocket in which I write any and all ideas which pop into my head whenever they pop into my head...whether it occurs at midnight or at 4:00 right after I walk through the door at work.

Mystic, I can fully empathise, though I like to think everyone is a schizo, and non-writers are just people suffering from single person syndrome.