I’ve been following this block for a while now and can’t hold back any longer to reveal my dark inner self to this fine circle of writers.
Since this is my first post I hereby thank Keith from the bottom of my dark soul for creating this beauty to help me fight my inner chaos.
Considering the fact that I am a certified man should underline the following compliment: Keith, I wanna have your baby!
And I’m sorry my biological makeup can’t fulfill my desire to honor you appropriately.
Ohh, and of course to all you fine writers in this forum: please to read you!
Back to my topic question.
I don’t know how many of you guys prefer to write through the night.
I do prefer to write by night, and I’m much more proficent when I can do it. During the day I’m always confused; during night I feel as if I can see things in a much clearer way, and I can have the needed epiphanies.
Alas, during the years my life has shifted toward the day, with all the related bad consequences.
There won’t be any phone calls, knocks at the door, or other competing demands for my attention. Should I be so foolish as to think of something I need to do, I certainly can’t do it now.
It’s so freeing to write when the rest of the world has had its volume turned down.
Write at night, definitely. As werebear points out
Just me and the screen and perhaps a Bach cello suite in the background. (During the day, it’s more likely to be one of the East European or Russian headbangers, like Khatchaturian’s ballet music; odd, that such quiescent music helps me focus at night, and such rowdy music does so during the day. Must have to do with shutting out – or simply overwhelming – the ambient distractions.)
What I’ve found particularly is that night writing is where the bulk of the raw material is produced. What goes on during the day is more likely to be tweaking and re-arranging. Again, the factor must be that night is so relatively distraction-free. You can follow one idea, one character, one plot line for as long as you want. Daytime is better for a series of briefer, not-necessarily-interrelated chores.
Another point. My comment above prompts me to ask: what, if any, music do you have playing while you write? (Note that “have playing” need not translate to “listen to.”) I don’t always have music on, certainly less than half the time. But it does, when it’s on, help me focus. Anyone else?
Phil
… in whose time zone it’s presently 8:35 AM, making it not only possible but likely that he’s procrastinating.
Mmmn… It’s a mood thing, isn’t it? At this moment I’m listening to Copland’s 3rd Symphony, molto deliberato - his reworking of Fanfare For The Common Man; so evocative, all gingham and dungarees. But Copland or Clapton, Sibelius or Santana, it depends on the mood of the moment. If I’m behind schedule though, it tends to be the Rolling Stones’ “Don’t Stopâ€
Amusingly, because I’m British but 90% of my clients are in the US, the daylight hours are when I can get work done without any interruptions (besides taking the dogs out, the other main reason I can’t be nocturnal).
If I worked at night, my American editors would be in their offices and I’d never get anything done
I’m too old for night writing now, sadly. When I do indulge I find either that I’m shattered a couple of days later, or that I turn into some sort of mad caricature of insatiable creative genius who snaps at her family for interrupting her work when all they want is a little acknowledgment once a week
At the moment I am listening to a rather weird orchestral thing composed by Jon Leifs - a sort of tone poem on a bleak Scandinavian landscape. I’ve got it playing on a loop and it’s growing on me, but the first time I played it, the children were rather horrified.
Usually, I play Verdi’s Requiem. I like Requiems (what is the plural? that doesn’t look right) because they have voices to drown out any background talking around you, but you don’t have to listen to the words because for the most part they are either perfectly predictable or perfectly indistinguishable. They also tend to have quite a good rise and fall in mood or emotion. Well, it works for me. Sometimes.
Pretty much everything. I know a lot of writers who can’t listen to music, or can only listen to instrumental music, because it distracts them. I’m quite the opposite; having music playing helps me zone out the rest of the world and focus.
Whether or not this is anything to do with what might fairly be called an obsession I’ve had with music pretty much all my life, I can’t say. But it does mean that I can just put my iTunes on permanent shuffle, playing everything from the heaviest metal to the bubbliest pop, and write away quite happily.
To list everything would be long and tedious. Just take a look at the top few artists on my last.fm page to see what I mean
Funny how as the years pass the consequences of a real late-nighter are visited upon one not 24 but 48 hours later. Well, upon me, anyway.
Music… Anything symphonic, or cod symphonic, that stirs the blood, but at just above subliminal volume. So I’m a sucker for stuff Zimmer-ish - currently the Transformers score - though not by Zimmer - following
Holly Lisle’s recommendation. Wild hamsters, however, couldn’t drag me to see the movie.
