the 2am writing.
why i write at night, and what the dark hours have given me.
i write best at 2am. i've tried to change this about myself. i've tried morning pages and golden-hour journaling and sensible evening writing sessions that end at a respectable hour.
none of it works the way 2am works.
there's something about the hour itself. the world has gone quiet and your defences have gone with it. you're tired enough that the editor in your head has clocked out. the part of you that worries about how things sound, about whether this is too much or too honest or too obvious — she's asleep. what's left is just the thing you actually think. i've written some of my truest things at 2am. things i wouldn't have been brave enough to write in daylight. things that, when i read them back in the morning, made me think: oh. so that's what i actually feel. the 2am writing is not always good writing. sometimes it's a mess. but it's almost always honest. and honest, for me, is the starting point. everything else can be fixed.
the mess can be edited. the honesty can't be manufactured.
@diverse_.writes