How to write an entire book at night, in the glow of your iPhone’s screen

If you didn’t know Patrick Hart had a blog, don’t feel bad—there’s a good chance you were asleep when he was writing it. This Oregon-based writer, musician, and amateur photographer is usually awake when you’re asleep—and presumably vice-versa—due to his job working the graveyard shift. But if you are awake at that hour, you may have walked right by his desk, “the parking lot and street corners of your nondescript neighborhood megamart,” without even realizing it. “This,” he says, surveying the dimly-lit scene, “is my desk.” Sure it’s an unconventional one, but everyone’s gotta have an office somewhere.

Not many a novelist can claim he wrote his book in the middle of the night, on his meal break, using only his iPhone. But then, this self-described Oxford comma enthusiast and “marathoner of the run-on sentence” tends to do things a little differently, as you’ll find out when you visit his blog, The Night Shift, and read some of his clever articles about what keeps him busy, why he wants to do more writing outside of music, and why he’s sick of Portland.

This morning he has graciously remained awake a few extra minutes to tell us where his inspiration comes from, and to show us this gorgeous beachscape that he captured while on vacation in Maui a few years back. Scroll on!

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Photo credit: Patrick Hart

Patrick’s two cents:

What inspires my writing is emotion. I’ve been an intensely empathetic individual my whole life, so I take in the emotion in a room like a sponge, which is great for writing, but not necessarily for peace of mind. That empathy breeds a need for a therapeutic way to deal with it all, so I write stories full of emotion to exorcise what demons take refuge in my head, whether by my own doing, or that of an outside source. I love it, because it saves me a large chunk of change in the shrink department.

Thanks for sharing, Patrick. Now please go get some sleep!

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