A good and bad thing about writing as a profession is that you can do it any time you feel like it. The last few nights, I slept real well but when I went to bed tonight — meaning about five hours ago — I just plain couldn't sleep. The body was willing but the brain refused to dial down and after way-too-long of lying there stark awake, I finally got up and went to this here computer. If I worked in a shoe store that kept normal hours, I couldn't go in and sell Nikes to customers at 4 AM.
I'm getting some pages done on a novel that has been an on-again/off-again project since COVID made its debut. I work on it between more pressing assignments and sometimes I think I'll finish it and try to get a publisher and sometimes, I read over some of it and think, "Aww…nobody's going to want to read this." Novelist friends tell me that's absolutely normal. They also agree with me when I say that at times, I feel like I'm writing it because I want to see what the characters do. They sure haven't done a good job of following the outline in my head.
I dunno how long I'll work…until I get punchy or fall face-down asleep on my keyboard, I guess. Lately when I go to bed and expect to doze off quickly, I dictate a note to Alexa and tell her what time it is. If I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm not sure if I've had enough sleep (and I'm alone), I ask Alexa to read the note aloud and then I have her tell me what time it is at that moment. If the difference is much less than five hours, I go back to sleep. One recent night, it was nineteen minutes. Sometimes, it's hard to tell.