Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

It seems as though the only time I can ever write is late at night, when I'm feeling really restless. I don't mean writing like blogging, I mean working on one of my novels. I wonder if that's normal? I had always pictured authors to be a little neurotic, maybe that's where this is coming from. I assumed they did not get up until around 10 AM. In the early afternoon, they would research and drink and endless supply of coffee (ha ha can you now see why I always wanted to write?!?! Kidding!). Their writing would go deep into the evening, and occasionally into the wee hours of the morning. You could walk by their office to find them with a cup of coffee in hand, squinting at the screen, and pounding away furiously at the keyboard, as if the thoughts won't be committed to paper if they don't get written NOW. They would crawl into bed around dawn, and repeat the cycle, day in and day out.

I only wonder this because I don't know that I've ever had a stream of consciousness as thorough as I do in the wee hours of the morning. During the day, when I look at my writing, I'm always slightly astonished at how good--or at least, professional--it sounds. Somehow, it all just comes to me when I'm writing at night. However, when I try writing during the day, my delete key gets all the exercise, and I maybe have written one sentence by the end. Maybe I've got some Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde thing going on...

I'd be curious to find out how published authors write, and if it's anything like I had imagined. Being a full-time writer? THAT would be a dream come true. But in the meantime, I'll have to settle for these early morning hours, writing 3-4 pages here and there, in hopes to eventually complete one of my books and have it published.