Ideas are pretty much bread and butter to a fiction writer, right? Where would a novel be without there being an idea first? I guess it’d just be a blank book.

So on the premise that having inspiration and ideas hit is totally important, I have to tell you about the results of a study I bookmarked a while back. It was one of those weird hotel chain surveys (done by various chains, on a bizarre range of topics, just to get the name of their chain in front of more people – but I’m not going to give them the satisfaction today, sorry).

The survey talked about how and when people get creative and inspired, and the most interesting (but probably useless) result was this: 10.04pm is the most likely time for a brainwave.

Obviously, I’m not average, because I know that after ten o’clock in the evening, my brain is already asleep, if not my body, too. Perhaps I’m doing something wrong?

I’m not too worried. I usually have no shortage of ideas and I know my inspiration comes from many places, at many times. Other parts of the survey rang truer for me, such as getting great ideas in the shower, and the scary statistic that 58% of people forget their best ideas because they don’t write them down immediately. Luckily I’m pretty devoted to getting my ideas down on paper as soon as I can and tend to chant weird mnemonics in the bathroom if I’ve come up with more than one idea I want to remember, since a paper and pencil don’t work out so well when you’re under the shower.

But back to the 10.04pm thing. I guess if I had to make a time, I’d have to name my most creative times as being between 6.30am and 7am (on days when I get up to go to work), and on the weekends, around 7.30am to 8am when I’m half-dozing, half awake in bed and my brain gets flooded with ideas.

So now I’m intrigued. When are your most creative times? Are you a morning person like me or one of those weird night owls who’ll right a classic book sometime after midnight? Let me know your creative times in the comments.