The human body is perplexing. If not amazing, amusing. I was doing a lot of graveyard shifts recently (f*** far apart time zones, right?) and figured something that has kept me wondering.
Last Saturday, I wrapped up work by 4 am in the morning. My body was soaking in caffeine. I was ‘tired’. But not tired enough to not do a short run. I decided to push it a little bit and went out for a run at 4.30 am. Just about 5 kilometres in. Guess what, I felt like I could run more. But I didn’t want to take it too far. I thought I’d come back home, sleep in the morning and make up for the time I lost working the night. But, I couldn’t just sleep, not because I couldn’t but I didn’t want to. Interesting.
Another experiment. Another late night’s work. I wrapped up work around 3am in the morning. Thought I’d get an hour’s rest before I go for a run at about 4 am. Guess what, I felt like shit when I woke up for the run. Head was throbbing. Shoulders ached. Body too stiff. I still ran. But it felt like punishment. Interesting.
However, this same tactic works wonders if you’re doing it during the day. Take a short nap after your lunch. Not more than twenty minutes. And you’ll find yourself more rejuvenated like you gulped down two cans of Redbull. Of course not everyone’s the same. So try for yourself and figure it out.
I don’t know what to make of it. But I think the body loves momentum. Give it a little break and you get pushed back by a number of strides. Now take that and apply to work. Writing, especially copywriting. Can you work five days a week, take Saturday and Sunday off and get back to work with the same efficiency on a Monday? Maybe yes. You can. But if you’ve been writing for some time, some of you would realize how difficult it is to get back in that ‘space’.
What do I recommend? Work for your boss free over the weekends? Definitely not. But still, you could ‘practice momentum’ by doing hobby work on your days off. Needn’t be necessarily only copy work. You could write some crappy poems. Try fiction. Or read something. Something. The goal is just to not let the muse walk far away far from you. Keep her close. Give her some free time away. But not so much so that she feels ‘detached’ from you when you call her on a Monday. The only way to keep her addicted to you and expect her service at your beck and call is to keep using her everyday. Maybe that’s why we see most coaches in the dating and relationship niche suggesting men to keep flirting and ‘practicing’ courting even when not in a relationship and sometimes, even when you’re in one.
Makes sense to copywriting as well. Doesn’t matter if you’ve got a gig or a project going on or not, keep practicing copy. The greats have done it. The contemporaries have done it. Even the ones that make regular six figures and above, even though they’ve got a team, they still write copy every single day themselves. Plenty of examples. But I’ll save your time here and ask to research it on your own.
May all the ass-breaking hours on your desk, humiliating rejections, days and nights of unwavering focus on your drafts, the mockery of the blank page, the multiple middle fingers, self-doubt, crippling feeling of inadequacy, imposter syndrome, envy, unhealthy obsession, ruined relationships and all the pre-mature grey strands that you find on your beard that 'writing for a living' comes with- feed you more joy than anything else, even money.
No. Strike that out. Money’s still better.
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