Always the Quiet Ones
Ever hear that expression ‘burning the midnight oil’? That’s the only way I can work.
I’ve tried really hard to go to bed at the same time as normal people, but when I sit down to write during the daytime, my brain just doesn’t engage. “But it’s light outside! It’s not time to go to work yet!” I end up getting nothing done until after everyone else has gone to bed, when my muse comes out to play.
It could be because of where and what I write – BDSM erotic romance books, at home. It’s pretty hard to concentrate on a sex scene when you have other people sitting in the room, potentially able to glance over at the screen and see what the latest naughty act you have your characters performing. Unfortunately, the only place I can write where no one will make me self-conscious is my bedroom. And if I’m sitting on the bed, soon I’ll be napping on the bed. It’s inevitable!
When I used to edit books as well as write them, several of my clients – none of whom knew each other at the time – would ask me if I was a vampire. I used to joke with the North American and Australian authors that I was actually operating on their time zones instead of the UK’s, but when I actually spent a couple of weeks in the US a couple of years ago, my body clock helpfully synched to the UK’s time zone so I’d be wide awake at three in the morning in Seattle.
I’ve stopped trying to make my body conform to sociable hours for the moment. As long as I can drag myself out of bed during the day occasionally for appointments and to see friends, it doesn’t really matter to me that I’m awake all night. That’s when I can be productive, and luckily I don’t have kids or a spouse to neglect. My cat probably prefers my strange habits – it means there’s someone always awake in our house to feed him!
There’s one question that always bugs me, though. If I’m always working through the witching hour, why don’t I write paranormal romance?
Maybe one day I will!
Always the Quiet Ones is a M/F/f BDSM ménage romance, one of the many books Amy Valenti has written during the hours between dusk and dawn! It’ll be out in ebook format on December 26th at all the usual retailers. You can find her at http://amyvalenti.com, sign up to her mailing list for notifications of new releases, or find her on Facebook or Twitter.