Why is it, I have often asked myself, that I seem to do my best work in the middle of the night? I noticed this first when I was writing my MA thesis, but it has turned out to be the case pretty regularly since then. I will go to sleep in the usual way, but then find that I am awoken in the middle of the night, fresh and alert and ready to go. There is no point in trying to pretend that it isn’t really happening, turning over and going back to sleep. That simply does not work. I have to get up and do something creative.
Oddly, this does not usually involve anything directly artistic. I don’t recall ever painting or drawing in the night. The clarification and ordering of ideas, however, is typical of these moments of wakefulness. Last night I realised that a group of pictures I have either completed or am currently contemplating will fit together in an intelligible group, justifying approaches to exhibiting venues. A few scribbled notes to self are enough to fix the idea in such a way that it can be developed in a more leisurely way later on. The seed, or core of the project, however, had me sitting up in the small hours, unable to do anything else other than get up and record it. One idea that I had more or less abandoned has appeared in a new guise, taking its place in the wider scheme of things once redefined.
My wife is convinced that there is something wrong with me, as any experience of sleeplessness she has is entirely different, and an indication that something is amiss. This is, however, the way I have become accustomed to working normally. I would be really interested to hear whether anybody else has similar experiences.