Wherein The Author Relates Something Vaguely Interesting (Maybe) About Himself

A thought occurred to me as I finished up my writing for the night. I glanced over at the clock and, upon noticing the time, thought about how weird it felt to be doing fiction writing at midnight. And it was weird to me, that that felt weird, because it used to be that late at night was the prime writing time, the very best time to do writing. In fact, I have that whole "night owl" persona built up primarily around the idea that I'm a nocturnal entity for the sake of creativity.

And to some extent, it's still true that I do a lot of my work late at night, but I've realized that these things are typically essays or papers, things that are only getting done this late because they're due very, very soon. I don't write late into the night any more. If you look over my twitter updates, it seems the early to late evenings are my writing times now.

If this shift in perspective means anything, I think that it shows how my attitude has changed towards my work. Once upon a time, writing was just something that I did because it was fun, because it felt good to do, because I thought it was cool. It wasn't really a job, it wasn't work, it was just this thing that I did whenever I felt like it, and especially in the beginning, it seemed like I often "felt like it" in the early hours of the morning, while the rest of the world was asleep.

Now, though, it feels like writing is something that's serious, that this isn't just a game any more, if you'll pardon the overly dramatic movie quote. And I think that's reflected in the new hours that I keep. To me, these late night hours have come to represent what is quintessentially "me time." Aside from a couple of exceptions, I'm almost always by myself at this point of the day. My phone doesn't ring. Nobody is going to send me email at this hour. It's one of the few times I can feel really alone.

This is the time when it's okay for me to be selfish. It's the time when I can play video games, or watch episodes of Lost on Netflix, or read a book without interruptions. I can do whatever I want, because the world of responsibility is protected by a comfortable nocturnal shroud that won't lift until the sun returns the next day.

I don't like having to spend this time on important things, "real" things. And now that writing is a "real thing" to me, not just something I do because I feel like it from time to time, but a real, concrete thing that represents a large investment of myself, it no longer feels like it truly belongs with the other nocturnal pursuits. It feels like it belongs to the Day, that time when I'm focused and responsible and dedicated to work, the time when I'm serious and in control.

I'm painting with a fairly broad brush here, to be perfectly honest. In truth, I waste plenty of time during the day just as I do write essays late into the night. But I like to think that my various tendencies and habits reflect some sort of predilection to order in my life, and the fact that I no longer feel like novel writing at one in the morning should reflect some sort of deep personal change.

It might also have something to do with the fact that, just as I noticed tonight, it's always much, much harder to get myself to do some work after I've relaxed for an hour than if I'd just sat down right after getting home and writing for an hour. So there's also that.

Class starts tomorrow. I can't decide if I'm thrilled or distressed by this fact.