sleeeeeep, or internal clock? what internal clock?

[jeno]

So I had a breakthrough last night! I finally figured out a plot problem I had been working on all week! It was awesome!

...too bad this breakthrough happened at around midnight and had me writing until 5am. I woke up this morning feeling like a zombie.

Does this kind of late night inspiration ever happen to anyone else? How do you deal with it? And you're not allowed to say coffee, because coffee makers and I don't mix.


(also, should the comma be after the 'or' in the subject line? it's been bothering me.)

[Starbeam]

I get that kinda thing all the time.  I'm naturally a night person and always did a lot of my writing at night.  Now, I just hope the idea sticks so that I can get to it when I have time to write.  My b/f goes to sleep and wakes up earlier than I do, and anything I do during that time will likely wake him up.  If we had a less noisy door, I'd be writing at all kinds of hours.

[prophet224]

When that does happen I usually just take some notes, though if I am able I will stick it out and actually write.

Frankly, I have to be able to work, so... I just do the best I can with the late writing and make sure I can do my day job.

[Kali]

I tend to think about (read: daydream over) my latest WIP just before falling asleep.  This is a bad idea, for just that reason.  If I get a great idea, I have to get up and jot something down or I'll lose it by morning.  And sometimes that's enough to wake me up and I'm up for hours (I have the worst sleep problems sometimes).  But still, I get up and I jot. 

I don't write unless I can't fall back asleep.  I just type enough down to jog my memory in the morning.  Maybe a bit of dialogue, a quick couple of words.  Um... Here's one from a few weeks ago:

B sees R re: patrice curse, can use to hint at CU in town
R: "Ah.  Your opinion.  I've been looking all over for that."

Now, I can't recall the entire scene I had in my head, but it did solve a problem about when to start introducing a plot complication, and it gave me a nice, sturdy B-plot to start building on.  But if I'd stayed up to write out the whole scene as I saw it, I'd have been up all night.  And if I hadn't written anything down, I probably wouldn't have remembered any of it.  It's a nice compromise for me.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Does this kind of late night inspiration ever happen to anyone else? How do you deal with it?

Right here at this precise exact quarter-past-midnight instant I am shutting the computer down and going to bed like an adult who has to go to sodding work in the morning and dislikes this mightily.

Mostly I deal with this by writing Fridays and the Sundays of three-day weekends. Ex-boss wants to take me out for bleated farewell dinner this Friday, though, and I am travelling at the weekend.  Insert grumpyface here.

[prophet224]

The wife just gave me a birthday present that helps with the 'traveling' problem.

I finally went over to a smartphone a month or two ago, specifically the Droid X with its nice big screen.

She then got me the Freedom Pro bluetooth travel keyboard. It folds up to just a bit larger than the droid itself, is a full-size keyboard, and pairs pretty seemlessly. With that and pretty much any note-taking program (I use mywritingnook.com), you can write anywhere.