There are two things that keep writers awake. One is the fear monster that rears its head in the small hours of the night, the other is the creative brain going into overdrive.
Both are sleep-slayers. For both, there’s an antidote in the shape of that all important notebook by the bed.
I’ll tackle each in turn.
Worry hour
Churchill called it his Black Dog, Edward Lear called it the Morbids. In our household it’s known as Worry Hour.
It’s an all consuming terror that visits in the wee small hours, when waves of angst appear one after the other and all seems hopeless.
For me, Worry Hour arrives at 3 am. I half-wake, with a vague sensation that something isn’t right, a sense there’s something important I’ve forgotten to do, some adversary not headed off, crisis waiting to happen.
As I surface into wakefulness, that worry takes shape, fast followed by an onslaught of other random anxieties. Some are global – like war, or climate catastrophe.
Others are petty, domestic concerns, like the fact I haven’t yet renewed my car tax or forgot to fill up the bird-feeders so the birds will starve and die.
Covid doesn’t help, as many of my worries are health-related. Having had two killer illnesses before the age of 50, I’m fearful of getting a third.Those worries extend to the health of those around me, of the country, of the world.
Whether large or small, these night-time anxieties assume giant proportions, their consequences catastrophic. In the dark hours before dawn they are unsurmountable, and overwhelming.
Psychologists say this is normal. And it’s by no means confined to writers, or depressives, or excessive worriers.
Even before Covid, a third of UK adults reported anxiety-related sleeplessness. Since the pandemic that percentage is likely to have shot up.
In the UK, confined by Lockdown 3, many our out healthy emotional outlets are currently curtailed. And although we now have hope, in the rapid progress of an effective vaccination programme, there are potentially vaccine-defiant variants on the march too, pulling us up short just as we thought it might be safe to relax a little.
This kind of night-time angst is common, and – I suspect – particularly in Covid times – it’s universal.
The advantage writers have, is a vital tool for dealing with Worry Hour – the notebook by the bed.
So when these feelings threaten to overwhelm, when they reach the point that I know sleep is out of the question, I’ll reach for pen and paper and address each one, from the macro to the micro, numbering each worry and pouring out all my fears onto the page, letting the emotions flow in all their extremity.
This in itself is healing and might be enough for some people.
What I do next is go back over what I’ve written with a now more rational brain, addressing each numbered point in turn.
Some of the global ones, I can’t do anything about, or if I can its something as small or simple as signing a petition. For others, there are obvious solutions.
The trick is to switch off the worry, and writing out each one, for me, is the key.
I am reminded of the ‘serenity prayer’ because basically, the process I go through to combat Worry Hour is the same.
Lord grant me the grace to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
The midnight muse
There’s another uninvited late-night caller that comes to steal my sleep. I call it the Midnight Muse.
This is an altogether more welcome visitor than Worry Hour, but equally sleep-depriving.
I’ll wake, usually long past midnight, brain buzzing with ideas, and a compulsion to get them down on paper. I wake up wired, electrons fizzing round my brain. Killer-lines of perfect prose arrive ready-formed.
And it’s imperative to write them down. Now. They’ll be gone by morning.
Unlike Worry Hour, the feelings associated with the Midnight Muse aren’t harrowing or traumatic. But they are just as intense.
There’s a sort of euphoria associated with the experience. The experience is all-consuming. The Muse demands to be heard.
So again, I turn on the light. And I write. I may then settle down to sleep to find more ideas firing and more words forming, so the light goes on again and I get those down too.
And eventually, when it’s all written out of my system, I’ll sleep.
Thankfully, in my case, the muse is an infrequent visitor, otherwise it would play hell with the day job, but when it does appear I go with it. And in my opinion, writing can be as restorative as sleep.
Nocturnal scribes
If you find yourself scribbling away during the wee small hours, pen or keyboard in full flow, you’re in good company.
Many authors choose to write at night, finding the hours of darkness the most inspirational, or least distracting.
Stephanie Meyer wrote most of the Twilight trilogy at night, when her kids were asleep. Other night-time writers include Danielle Steele, Jacquelyn Mitchard and Barack Obama.
Proust reputedly lined the walls of his Parisian bedroom with cork so he could sleep by day and write by night.
Kafka wrote The Judgment in a waking nightmare between 10pm and 6am. “Writing is a deeper sleep than death,” he wrote. “Just as one wouldn’t pull a corpse from its grave, I can’t be dragged from my desk at night.”
Novelist Donald Westlake described working through the small hours as: “like being in the basket of a blimp..” and wrote most of his 90 books at night.
“It’s wonderful,” he said. “There’s just one little room with me in it, and I’m sailing through the night wherever the story will go.”
And there is something strangely comforting about the feeling that you’re the only one awake, as though ideas flow freer and clearer when not crowded out by the consciousness and noise of others.
So whether you’re plagued by nocturnal-angst or on the cusp of a breakthrough in your writing, my advice is, keep a notebook by the bed and embrace the night.
Incidentally, I wrote this blog at 4.30 am!
Over to you:
Do you have an optimum time to write? Are you up with the lark or burning the midnight oil? Or have you tried writing as a way of addressing anxiety? Let me know in the comments!
