Essay to Be Read at 3 a.m.

I don’t know why I write at night. For some reason, it’s when my corner of the Earth is turned away from the sun that my inner fires blaze. I’d say more than 80 percent of my first book was written after midnight. My editor jokes about receiving emails from me with a 4:15 a.m. time stamp, and my agent—a passport-certified morning person, as perhaps all agents must be—has known from our first correspondence that I’m available “any time not before noon.” I know it smacks of ingratitude to question the peculiar demands of one’s muse; I realized years ago it’s preferable just to go wherever your process leads you rather than have an opinion about it. But I can’t help it.