Writers and Sleep

Well, it seems that my insomnia may well be tied in to being a writer. Or perhaps I am just not allowing myself to be the night owl I truly want to be, if A L Kennedy's is the example to go by.

Left to my own devices, I would always keep my office hours between 10pm and 4 or 5am. Sadly, the rest of the world fails to understand this and tends to telephone me most mornings. Traffic noise, hammering next door, unforgiving travel schedules, the necessity of meeting daytime people and purchasing food; they all conspire to drive me from my bed and disturb my natural order, so I spend my life jolting from one kind of jetlag to another.

I feel this jet lag that she talks about, but I have been fighting it, desperately trying to fit myself into the norms of society that says when I must go to sleep and when I must get up. But working during the night would solve my Room-With-A-Door problem - if we assume J will be asleep! But then another problem would be created: when would he and I spend time together? During those few hours of overlap?

As A L says:

there are daytime people who go about their shiny business under the sun, who eat breakfast at breakfast time, who would never dream of sitting on the couch in a felt hat and pants watching nature documentary reruns with signing for the deaf and eating semolina from the tin while foxes squeal outside in the gloom - and then there are people like me.

Here's the full article: The night owl: 'My office hours are from 10pm to 4am' The Observer

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