Nocturnal Writer

I'll start today's blog post with a single question: are you a morning or night person?

For some of you the answer might be easy. Other times you might have to sit there and think about it for a few minutes. Or even some of you may be inclined to say you're both! That's the fence I'm straddling right now.

Last night, perhaps a little before suppertime at 4:30 to 5 an idea for a story came to me. So naturally I started writing in down. Eventually my hand cramped up so I fired up my laptop and started typing it out. Before I knew it eleven o'clock rolled around and I had to get to bed. But after brushing my teeth and the whole lot ideas were still blooming within me, so I grabbed my pen and notebook once more and started jotting them down. Finally at half past midnight I shut off my light, but still my mind hummed on that proverbial literary highway and I didn't drift off to sleep until 1 or 1:30.

Those of you who are writers will know what I'm talking about. An idea comes into your head and it's like it's a summer thunderstorm suddenly swelling on the horizon. There's nothing you can do to stop it from building up, from thickening the air, from consuming you, from pursuing you. You simply have to surrender to it, and let it run its course until finally you can sit back and make sense of everything. Picking through the haphazard words and ideas you've thrown onto the paper like a tornado shredding through a suburb, demolishing house after house.

So what does this have to do with the title of this blog post? Well, referring back to the idea I was up writing about until half past midnight last night, I'm come to understand something about myself. When I had my summer job at the library I had to be to work at eight o'clock. Therefore, in order to allow myself enough time to take a shower, eat breakfast and straighten my hair I woke up at five o'clock each morning. Was it difficult getting up that early five days a week? Sometimes yes. But I loved my job! I mean, I think I can safely say that it's any writer's dream to work in a library. I'm no exception! I love Sheboygan's library, and my former co-workers as well.

Unfortunately it was only a summer job, and a strained budget prevented me from working full-time there, so it ended in September. A few weeks after I found myself getting up at seven o'clock, or even six thirty. My mind and body were still on that early morning time. But it wouldn't be long before the wheels loosened, the track fell apart and I found myself tumbling back down to the old, rutted highway I knew so well. Sleeping in.

For some of you sleeping in until eight thirty may seem like a terrible waste of a morning, and I'd have to agree! But there's another side of me that says, this was the time I was meant to sleep in. I was never a morning person. I only woke up at five o'clock five days a week because I had to. But isn't that how a lot of us work? We would only wake up early in the morning because we had to? And I'm not just talking about work. Since I don't drive, occasionally the owner of the horse rescue farm I volunteer at in Reedsville picks me up in Sheboygan when she has to run errands nearby. She's always been an early riser, getting up at five thirty each morning. Of course, she has ten horses to tend to. But usually she'll pick me up around seven o'clock in the morning. So, naturally again, I have to wake up at five o'clock just to be ready in time. Are you seeing a pattern here? Funny, it took me a while to figure it out myself!

I only wake up early in the morning when I have to. Otherwise, let me sleep in! Sure, I've never done what my brother does...sleep in until eleven o'clock and then have pizza for breakfast and lunch. That's just crazy if you ask me. But even still I find myself thinking eight-thirty is too late to sleep in. What's your opinion? Are you a morning or night person? Or both like me?

Another point I wish to address is the fact that I seem to write better at night as well. Like I mentioned before in this post, I thought of an idea for a story and was up until half past midnight jotting it down. Looking back on it now I realized that as it got later and later my mind became more active and eager to develop the story. I paid no mind to the clock and kept writing, ideas spilling forth. Why is this you ask? I have no idea! Perhaps it's because I've always been a night person, but it took me until now to figure it out. I've always known in a vague sort of way that I seem to think better, and write better at night. It's like my creative side comes out of the shadows where it had been curled up during the day, sleeping like an old cat. Once night time falls it comes alive, stretching its limbs, howling with all its might, it recaptures its youth and blithely glides along, relishing the night and its darkness.

That's not to say that during the day my writing is sluggish. In fact, it's just as good. But just as I seem to be more creative and perhaps more productive at night, so am I more apt to write when the weather is say, overcast and rainy, or a whiteout blizzard is whirling outside my windows, or a severe thunderstorm is pounding away. In turn, when the weather is just the right temperature for shorts and a t-shirt and there's not a cloud in sight you'll find me outside on the patio, typing away on my laptop.

I guess my point is, each type of weather, and time of day, presents different writing opportunities for me. Which can produce varied results obviously, and I think it's part of the reason why writing is so special. Sometimes the weather, or time of day, can mean the difference between a productive day, and a day when it wasn't so productive. Other times what you struggled to get down on paper during daylight hours can suddenly be within your grasp like a mirage coming into focus, when nighttime rolls around. I know it's happened to me!

Of course, I could go into how a writer needs to be in the mood to write, and I could talk about a lovely thing called writer's block as well. But that's a whole other blog post entirely! And as it usually goes each of my posts are verbose as it is. No need to expand them any further right? If I remember correctly, for one of my college English classes I read a piece by Annie Dillard about writer's block. It was very well done. I think it was during my second English class that I stumbled upon it, so invariably I don't remember much, but one line stuck with me, if only a fraction of it. It was a line in which Dillard remarked that each time a writer sits down and makes up their mind to write, they don't just shoot off like huskies across the snow, it takes time to develop things and get the ball rolling.

That singular frame of words, huskies across the snow, gives me such a mental image of exactly what Dillard means. Huskies bound across the snow at top speed, effortlessly, smoothly and with exact precision. Do I wish I could begin every writing session like that. Of course! But as it goes, it doesn't always work out that way. Even if I'm writing in preferred conditions and I'm in the mood. Of course, even if it is a rough writing day, sometimes when I go back and reread what I've written, I find a few precious jewels I can save, or find that the piece as a whole isn't as bad as I thought, or perhaps I don't have to change a thing! If you wish to further look into Annie Dillard's book which I've quoted from, it's entitled The Writing Life. I'll attach a link to a website where you can read excerpts from Dillard's book, but I can't promise that it will work! Hopefully it does though. I know when I read the excerpts I greatly enjoyed sympathizing and agreeing with a lot she had to say, as well as just reading about her wisdom as a life long writer!http://browseinside.harpercollins.com/index.aspx?isbn13=9780060919887

In short, I've met a lot of writer's both in life and online, and I've found that a lot of my struggles are their own. I always enjoy talking with fellow writers, and hope anyone who is will post their own ideas to my blog. You're always welcome!

Until next time, I'll be working on my latest story idea and perhaps Wednesday night will find me writing once again.