I don’t sleep. Or, perhaps more succinctly, I don’t sleep much. I used to fret about it—toss and turn, frustrated with the ticking of the clock, watching the hours slip by, praying for that elusive sandman to grace me with his presence. I thought if I didn’t get in eight hours I wouldn’t be able to function, or think, or write. Or not do these things well, anyway.
And then I decided, one lonely and cold winter morning at 4:30 a.m., that I would accept it. Get out of bed, pad to the coffee pot, and strike up the computer. Ear phones on, steaming mug of coffee in hand, and the stillness of a house still asleep—I found this was the best time of day to write. And write I did! My entire third book, A Fine Duplicity, was written on mornings between the hours of 4:40 a.m. (I had to wait for the coffee to percolate) and 7:30 a.m. (when a sleepy teenager reared his head). Stories rolled off my fingertips—the typing was fast, my thoughts were efficient, and without the noise of the day (phones, family, traffic) I was able to crawl into that book and live for a little while.
There is no shortage of literature on the benefits of sleep. Get a good night’s rest. We need eight solid hours. But for many of us, without a bottle of sleeping pills, it just isn’t a reality.
So I say: take it, own it, produce within it.
Perhaps insomnia is a writer’s gift. Maybe having more awake hours means you are living more. Seizing life by the horns, as it were. I am happy to be awake, alive and present. Hell, I’ve even carved out enough hours in the day to train for a triathlon I stupidly signed up for one late night after a couple of glasses of wine and a few tipsy texts. Who knows, if this sleeplessness thing goes on any longer I may actually be in the running for an Ironman. And a Pulitzer!
Okay, let’s not get carried away.
