You know you've been up too late working on your book when..

[aspiring_x]

... you almost brush your teeth with your husband's razor.

[maybegenius]

You tumble into bed and land on a cat you didn't know was there.

[JustineDell]

Your alarm clocks goes off, telling you to get up, when you're still sitting at your computer. Is that the sun I see? Eeek!

[marilyn peake]

The next day you can’t get started without three cups of coffee, and those three cups of coffee only get you as far as THINKING about writing more of your book.

[dementedtinkerbell]

The next day you can’t get started without three cups of coffee, and those three cups of coffee only get you as far as THINKING about writing more of your book.

This is me!

You know you've been up too late working on your book when the kids come into the room demanding to be taken to school now or they'll be late for registration.

[Tycoon]

Work calls and asks you, "WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!?!"

[JustineDell]

Work calls and asks you, "WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!?!"

*SUPER SMILE*

~JD

[E McD]

you can't speak coherently about anything at work the next day.

[poptart]

A family of owls nest in your bed.

[Jaime]

You read through your MS a month after writing a particular piece in a chapter, and you can't remember writing it at all. What's more, the writing is pretty good. You're actually impressed with yourself, and wonder whether it was during a time when you were 'resting your eyes' whilst typing . . .

[Seamus]

. . . when you read your MS the following day and see that your story has wandered into disturbingly dark places, making you incapable of looking at your characters the same way ever again.

[PaulWoodlin]

Seamus, it sounds like you spent just the right amount of time at your computer.

[Seamus]

Seamus, it sounds like you spent just the right amount of time at your computer.

A buddy in my (former) writer's group always took things darker than I would have and seems to still sit on my shoulder pulling me away from Mayberry.* I suppose my discomfort is cathartic -- I need to let my story ride through storms more than I do. It should be no surprise that this guy did most of his writing in the basement after midnight.

*Mayberry was the home of the fictitious Sheriff Andy Taylor of the Andy Griffith Show, referred to here as an idyllic small town, where the greatest controversy was who stole Aunt Bea’s fresh-baked pie from the window sill. I grew painfully aware in the "how old are you" topic that not all of my references would be understood by about eighty percent of Nathanians, given that they are my children's ages :-)

[aspiring_x]

*Mayberry was the home of the fictitious Sheriff Andy Taylor of the Andy Griffith Show, referred to here as an idyllic small town, where the greatest controversy was who stole Aunt Bea’s fresh-baked pie from the window sill. I grew painfully aware in the "how old are you" topic that not all of my references would be understood by about eighty percent of Nathanians, given that they are my children's ages :-)

made me laugh out loud!

[dios4vida]

I laughed too, Seamus. I might only be 26 but I have a rather prolific history with the good folks of Mayberry. :)

You knows you've been up too late working on your book when...

...your husband toddles into your office looking completely tossled and asked, "Are you EVER coming to bed?"
...you wave goodbye to your neighbor/brother-in-law who leaves for work at 4:30 in the morning.
...you read your MS the next morning and you realize you wrote more last night than you've written during the past week.