Today I am writing after getting six and a half hours sleep. That would be fine if I hadn't been awake for forty two hours before that. I am oddly sparky, though certainly feeling increasingly weary as I type these words. I've got a three hour, quite talky play tonight (WHO WOULD WRITE SUCH A THING) so I'm going to be mainlining coke - the bad for your teeth kind not the bad for your soul kind - in the interval.

Why have I put myself in this position? It's because I pulled an all-nighter on the Wednesday to get a project done for Thursday noon. I had promised myself I wouldn't do any all-nighters this year but having now done two in consecutive weeks and them being oddly not too completely awful, I thought I’d talk a little about how and why I do them in the *checks watch* forty minutes I have spare today. It’s been a while since I did a craft newsletter anyway.

Although.

I should hesitate in calling this a discussion about craft because let’s be clear: If you’re doing an all-nighter, it is an indication of a failure of some kind. Scheduling. Personal time management. Expectation. There are plenty of reasons why you might have to do one, and when I was younger it was a nice combo of bad time management and anxiety that stopped me writing until literally it could not be avoided. Of course that combo still rears its head from time to time but happily I have wrought myself into being enough of a professional to find ways around those issues most of the time.

The last two times I’ve had to do an all-nighter, it’s been for more acceptable (ish) reasons: Lots of shit to change. Not a lot of time to change that shit. This will probably happen to you at some point in your career. I’d looked over the notes I’d been given for each of those drafts, processed them through a working strategy that takes account of my normal writing schedule and came up with a negative amount of possible hours to get it done. You always hope that this isn’t true, that you’ll somehow do it faster but a rule for me has always been that my creative writing just takes longer than you hope it will. If I’m honest with myself, it’s probably partly a desire to wring every possible hour I can spare to make the work as good as I can make it. I’ve become increasingly frustrated with having to rush work so when I technically have enough hours to do something to a better standard if I strip out sleep then, well….I’ll do it.

*Checks watch* Thirty minutes left. Ok, let’s get into it.
 

HOW TO DO AN ALL-NIGHTER AND NOT FEEL TOO CRAPPY 

1) ATTEMPT TO BREAK IT DOWN

Even if it ends up being a total lie, parcel out the work so you can at least tell yourself you have a strategy that isn’t *PANIC*. The panic will be what kills you and the quality of your work. In order to be diligent and just get your head down, you need to believe it’s possible. Making it feel possible will do wonders for you. I usually go for four hour chunks of writing with twenty minutes of rest/nap/food. Speaking of…
 

2) GET A LOT OF GOOD FOOD IN

This is a newer one on me. I would usually do this but omit the “good” part but actually this is really important to get right. You’re awake longer than you’re meant to be so you’ll be burning those calories. The main tip I have here is avoid sugar like the plague. That might seem the opposite of what you’d expect but honestly you’re better off slowly ingesting a relatively caffeine source like a big coffee or tea than riding a wave of sugar highs and crashes. It’s exhausting debilitating. Remember, the aim is to work diligently and calmly, not keep yourself uber tweaked. Don’t over do that caffeine either, it’s got a long tail effect so you probably don’t need another one as quickly as you think you do. 

Have something that you like which isn’t too heavy but you can both cook and eat quickly is a godsend. Frozen stuffed paratha the you can heat in a pan in a couple of minutes got me through the other night. Maybe even look into a meal replacement shake or similar.

Drink lots and lots of water. It might make you pee more but hey at least you’re stretching your legs and it’s so easy to get dehydrated. You’re already doing an incredibly unhealthy thing. Don’t hurt your body more than you’re already doing. Get yourself a tube of knock-off Berocca from Sainsburys (it’s exactly the same and 1/3 the price) and indulge in one of those fizzy wonders.
 

3) SOFT FOCUS

This is something that my meditation taught me and it’s actually the ideal state in which to write I think. Not shoving your face into the screen but sort of gently going with it. Again, this speaks to the point about panic. Loosen yourself up. Take it slow. It’s all just one letter after the other.

4) CELEBRATE THAT MID-POINT MOMENT

Look, no matter how prepared you make yourself, staring down the barrel of an all-nighter is always bleak. I loved listening to a podcast the other day where the writers said they only really wrote for two or three hours a day. The idea that you have to keep going for many multitudes of that and still try to make it good is mortifying. I try to shake that feeling by lining up a big treat (well, a big treat relative to the horrible experience you’re going through) for when I’m halfway through. For me that’s take a nice hot shower. A long (again, relatively) walk in the quiet and cold night also does the trick.

Side but related point: OBVIOUSLY, for the love of Jebus, give yourself the day off after if you can.

*Checks watch* Ten minutes.

5) ADMIT DEFEAT IF YOU HAVE TO

This is a hard one to do and I’ve had to teach myself to do it. But if you do find yourself panicking and rushing through it (and there will always be a little of that towards the end) in a way that is obviously just you knocking out shit, stop. Honestly. While it might not feel like it when you’re writing that grovelling e-mail, you’re doing your collaborators a favour by fronting up the fact you won’t manage it rather than handing them a pile of rubbish.

It’s horrible but if you’ve made an honest go of it and it’s not going to happen, just let them know. No-one can make the impossible happen. I know it’s miserable but you have to respect the work and this is never about just knocking out nonsense. Sleep a few hours. Go back to it. You will all be happier for it.

6) ENJOY THE GOOD BITS (YES, THERE ARE GOOD BITS)

Your knees will feel funny. You might develop an aggressive blink. You’ll just straight up hate yourself and feel sick to your stomach. But there is some fun to doing an all-nighter. I got through almost all of a new comedy series I’d been meaning to watch for ages by making it my break time treat. 

I’ve also noticed that, when I’m really in the swing of it, I’m incredibly lucid and focused in a way I’m not during normal hours. I’m often making more enjoyable creative decisions off the cuff rather than through digging down. You can even find yourself moving at quite a clip which is just a wonderful tactile experience. I guess that nervous energy is a hell of a drug.

*Checks watch* Two minutes. Gonna scan this over quickly and send.

Have a great weekend (sorry for typos).

Vin xx