Writing at Night

This is how I do it.  My brain turns on at the weirdest times.

I first saw a pen like this when I was in my 20s, in a TV report about a movie reviewer, who used one to take his notes in a dark theatre.  I searched everywhere, and finally found one.  Before I had it, I tried a few other tactics to help me save for posterity the incredibly deep, meaningful thoughts I felt I was having at night.

I tried just writing with a pencil in the dark, but that didn't work out too well.  My writing, on a good day, looks like someone suffering from the DTs sprayed Silly String on paper during an earthquake.  What I mean to say is, it's really, really bad.  So, the pencil thing was a bust.

Next, I bought a mini-tape recorder, but my middle-of-the-night mumbling was almost worse than my writing.  It seemed like my Shakespearean musings would be lost to humanity.  How tragic!

The pen.

Then, I got my flashlight pen.  It was a revelation.  Finally, I could grab a pad, click the pen, and have just enough light to see what I was writing, without waking anybody up.  I used it until both the ink and the light ran out, although you may have guessed that top-shelf literary fiction was not produced.   Ah, well.  Now, of course, you can get anything on the internet, but I hadn't bothered to buy a new one for years.  Then, I found this one lying around the office.  I love having one again.

Monday to Friday, I'm a Strategic Analyst.  Not the world's most creative job, but I do get to write a fair bit, and I love the constancy of numbers.  Still, I have a creative side that needs to be fed, so I write.  Some of it ends up on this blog, but a lot of it doesn't. (You're welcome.)



Now that I am armed with my light/pen, I am back working on a novel.  Of course I am; who isn't?  Writing is like acting- everyone thinks they could do it, but in reality, very few people do it even passably well.  Still, when I write, whether it's good or bad, it's mine, and I find it immensely therapeutic.  Writing is how I process things; it has been my form of therapy as long as I can remember.  If I write down what's bothering me, then crumple up the paper and throw it out, I am metaphorically ridding myself of the problem, or at least acknowledging it.  From my school days, scribbling Mrs. Lori Springsteen across my books, to listing the million things I need to get done at work, I can't live without a pen and notebook within my reach.

Light's out, and I can still make notes.

It may never amount to anything, but writing is solitary, so no one has to watch.  Just be thankful that I don't find acting therapeutic.  That would be Shakespearean level tragic.