Perhaps it’s the nature of blog writing in 2018. A less connected medium, free from a socially networked place where we’ve remained logged in for several months without ever needing to remember our password. After not writing like this a year or more, with no expecting audience, it’s a bit freeing.
Midnight writing can go two ways; either it’s on a deadline, cramming to finish some arbitrary word count for an editor at 7 am, or it’s typing away at something that might never be read by more than a dozen people. In either case, the night is still and only odd sounds disrupt the clacking of the keyboard; either ghosts or some intruder (though neither are the case 100% of the time).
Writing at the midnight hour, for no one, for myself, for someone who might read this seven months from now. Its purpose unknown at the time, other than an urge to write, and tending to the desires of the muse is advisable (please see ‘Turning Pro’ for Steven Pressfield). Maybe this writing gets published and it gets 20 clicks, or maybe it moves one person to tears or action or rage and their entire universe is uprooted.
That’s why there’s midnight writing. Or the graffiti artist operating under the moonlight. A musician recording one more take on their laptop before diving into bed before another shift in the morning.
Its midnight, and we must write.