Many years ago, before I became a book editor, I worked in radio. It’s great work. I learned so much about dialogue and, with broadcast time always limited, I came to appreciate the art of telling a story concisely.
But one great thing about working in radio is the voice-over studio. It’s where the reporter goes to record the intro and links between the pieces of pre-recorded interviews.
It’s often a small room filled with all that audio gear and lined with soft, cushiony foam. It often has a comfortable chair too; one that doesn’t squeak when you’re recording.
The interesting thing about many of these rooms is that you can raise the slider on the mixing desk to open the microphone, ready to record, and a red light automatically comes on outside the room, alerting people not to enter. Anyone who works in radio respects that red light, way more than they would a traffic light.
For me, this was perfect. A magical little room. I’d always book the room for a half hour in the afternoon. Around 2 PM. I’d record what I’d have to (sometimes I didn’t always have to, but I’d still book the time – please don’t tell my ex-colleagues), then stop the recording.
But I’d leave the microphone fader up to keep that red light on outside. I’d then sit back in that quiet chair, wheel it against the wall and lean my head against that soft, pillowy foam, and fall asleep.
Well, it’s not really sleep. As anyone who naps will tell you, we don’t really fall asleep. It’s a nap. It’s different. It’s somehow not quite so deep, but it can be every bit as regenerative as a full 8 hours.
Yes. I admit it, I take naps.
Perks of the craft
And I’m not alone. In my last post about the benefits of walking for writers, many of you commented how napping was just as beneficial.
“Napping … is my alternative for refilling the creative well!” said Jan. “Naps are the best,” agreed Vijaya. Tom adds naps to walking and biking to find inspiration, while Denise uses naps to work out problems: “I often have the solution when I wake,” she said.
And they’re not alone. Stephen King is a fan too. In his book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, he says:
In both writing and sleeping, we learn to be physically still at the same time we are encouraging our minds to unlock from the humdrum rational thinking of our daytime lives.
In The Writer’s Book of Hope: Getting from Frustration to Publication, Ralph Keys said:
I find an afternoon nap is indispensable if I’m to accomplish anything after lunch. Naps are a writer’s perk.
Keys acknowledges that naps “have a fishy odor among those who have day jobs.” And it’s true. Many people look down on napping. It’s an unproductive waste of the day, they say, and those who nap are just lazy, lack stamina or motivation. If you don’t like to take an afternoon siesta because maybe you wake up even more grumpy than before, then that’s fine. If it’s not for you, don’t nap. But don’t judge us nappers either.
Creativity boost
Sure, I can work through a whole afternoon, but I know I’ll reach a point when I’m not at my best. That’s when I prefer to make myself comfortable somewhere, close my eyes for 20 minutes (often less, rarely more), and wake up refreshed and even more productive than if I’d chosen to plod on through the haze.
And the science backs us nappers up. A 2012 study from Georgetown University Medical Center suggest that the right side of the brain – considered to be the creative side – is more active than the left when we rest. “The brain could be doing some helpful housecleaning, classifying data, consolidating memories,” the study’s lead author, Assistant Professor Andrei Medvedev PhD, says. “That could explain the power of napping.”
Timing is important. “The short‐term benefits of brief naps (e.g., 10 minutes) … include greater alertness and accuracy and speed when performing a number of cognitive tasks, including psychomotor performance and short‐term memory,” reports a study from 2016.
Longer naps, more than 90 minutes, give you the time to enter REM sleep, and may be even more restorative. That’s especially true for people who don’t sleep so long at night (less than 7 hours or so). But the study authors point out that “long nap durations during the day may disturb nighttime sleep.” So maybe that’s why you’re getting less sleep at night in the first place.
The in-between time of 60 minutes is not always so good. You’re likely to wake in the middle of a deep sleep, meaning recovery can take longer and leave you with long-lasting sleep inertia. In other words, you’ll be grumpy.
Napping certainly doesn’t work for everyone. Neither does hiking, cycling, running, driving, knitting or whatever other pastime you do besides writing. The point is to find the activity – or, in the case of napping, lack of activity – that suits you, that helps you crack those character problems, fill those plot holes and see your setting.
There is probably just one thing all writers can do, next to their writing, to improve their storytelling, and that’s reading. Every author – and every editor – will benefit from reading as much as possible. Especially, I’d say, if that leads to a little snooze at the end of the chapter.
Does napping help you in your writing? What other activities boost your creativity?
About Jim Dempsey
Jim Dempsey (he/him) is a book editor who specializes in detailed analysis and editing of novel manuscripts through his company, Novel Gazing. He has worked as an editor for more than 20 years. He has a master’s degree in creative writing and is a professional member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading and is a trustee of the Arkbound Foundation. Jim is fascinated by the similarities between fiction and psychotherapy, since both investigate the human condition, the things that make us uniquely human. He explores this at The Fiction Therapist website. If you have a specific concern with your novel, send an email to jim [at] thefictiontherapist.com, or visit the website to ask for a free sample edit. You can follow Jim on Instagram @the_fiction_therapist.
When I was working on a novel and didn’t work my ‘steady money job’ as I do now, I would write from morning til about 2PM then I’d go take a nap – during that nap, things would become clear to me of what I needed to change or alter or write in the novel. It was really cool! I’d get up from my nap and go in there and make that change or changes.
Sometimes it was a tiny change, like a sentence I needed to remove, change, or put in. But the process really worked.
Night sleep does that too. But the nap was more immediate.
I love the idea of that room!
It’s the immediacy of the nap that really makes the difference. I can have great ideas at night, but forget them in the morning.
I hope your ‘steady money job’ still gives you the chance to relax a little in the afternoon. We need to spread the word how napping boosts producivity.
I learned about napping and writing from a mentor. We are extremely efficient writers in the morning, then as the day goes along, not so much. But after a nap and then the same routine of wake up, brush teeth, and have a cup of coffee (diet coke in my case) our brains are reset and we can start again. A 2 for 1 writing day! But walking also helps!
That sounds like a very wise mentor. I think Winston Church said something about having two days to everyone else’s one because of his afternoon nap. The morning rotuine in the afteernoon is a good tip though. Something to try out.
Napping is so normal to me that I’m not sure that I could write without my afternoon 20 – 30 minute nap. I use the nap to relax my brain and body and the results are sometimes worth gold. I have received the title of a book, as well as sticky plot lines while napping.
I think that’s it exactly, Jacqueline. It’s all about relaxing the brain. You’ll never get the answer if you sit there and force a solution to appear. A break away from the problem usually helps.
My father taught me about napping. He would lay back in his recliner for 20 minutes, then wake up and go back to work. I started doing it as a single mom, diving for any horizontal surface when the opportunity presented itself (I would have killed for that little sound room!) Now, the napping habit keeps me sane. I usually hit the wall by 2pm. After a nap I’m back in the chair, and as others have said, above, often with solutions to problems. As to the naysayers, I say a good nap might make them less negative!
2PM seems to be peak nap time, and great that you – if not all the naysayers – feel the benefit of your nap. A fine lesson from your father.
That sound room sounds so perfect! 2-3 pm tends to be a low point for me during the day but now that my children are grown I hardly feel the need for a nap. But they are so refreshing when I do take them. Actually, it’s time to pray the Divine Mercy chaplet with my cats.
I wish I could nap! I stopped having daytime sleeps very young, and now I don’t fall asleep during the day unless I’m sick. And then when I wake up, I’m all bleary and muddled and have no idea what day it is.
Napping is certainly not for everyone. But it seems that most people have something that takes them away from the blank page to find inspiration: walking the dog, gardening, a yoga pose. It’s a matter of finding your thing.
Jim, I’ll again affirm the glories of a daily nap. I have a regular routine of exercise (usually walking on the area slough trails, in my semi-rural neighborhood, or at the beach), then lunch, then a nap in the early afternoon. Usually 20-30 minutes and I invariably wake up refreshed and ready to write, edit, read or complain about existence.
The Churchill quote you alluded to is much like the one from Pete Hamill: “The replenishing thing that comes with a nap – you end up with two mornings in a day.”
An interesting point – do you think napping is more suited to those who are morning people? Two mornings a day sounds ghastly to some.
Haha, yes, Deborah, the idea of two mornings doesn’t necessarily sound too great.
I have ME/CFS. I take 3-5 naps a day, usually between 35 and 45 minutes long, just to survive.
I think of it as ‘mental dialysis’: it clears the junk out that I can’t get rid of continuously because the brain doesn’t work right any more.
I can power through – and get absolutely nothing done. Or I can take a nap, and come back to a bit more useful brain.
The only problem is that the choice to take a nap is a decision, and the reason that I need a nap is that I no longer have the capacity to make decisions!
So it’s a battle, even after thirty years of this.
But it works.
Mental dialysis is such a wonderful description.