3 a.m.

Three o’clock in the morning is the best time of the day. I’ve worked rotating shifts (each week moving back another 6 hours) and I state this a plain matter of fact. No, I’m sorry, your opinion doesn’t count. [Of course it counts, but not here in my blog post. If you wish to comment, you have the opportunity to argue for your favourite time in the comments section.]

As a Science Fiction fan, the most appropriate time of the day occurs when I can see the stars. The stars are almost an SF trademark. Who does not, upon a starry night, look up into the wondrous infinite and imagine what might go on ‘out there’? And, at three of the clock in the morning – given a lack of overcast – one can see the stars. [Note: this does not apply to the Arctic/Antarctic regions in the summer, where 24hr daylight abounds.]

The early morning hours mute the sounds of the city. Traffic has slipped to its nadir, and the greater portion of the population sleeps. Streets become avenues of the imagination, and trees ghostly sentinels against the night sky. In summer, the heat of the day has dissipated, and that of the next day has not yet had a chance to build. Darkness abounds, and darkness, too, feeds the imagination. And, finally, one sees cats on the prowl, denizens of the night. Being awake, one becomes a denizen of the night as well. There are worse things than claiming a kinship with cats.

Pinpricks of light from thousands of stars decorate the celestial dome. One looks up in awe. Ah, to be out there, looking down! One feels about as alone as one can in a city, town, or even village. With all others asleep, one stands in the world – alone. Alone,  the need to be anything for anyone disappears. And, alone, one brings for company one’s imagination; one brings one’s dreams. 

Darkness opens up the mind. The defences against the brightness of the day, against the closeness of people you see, come down. Clarity comes in the dim light that masks the ugliness of the world, the too-sharp images, the cut-and-dried. At three o’clock in the morning, I fly.

The hours between midnight and dawn, I find the most productive. In the aloneness (though not necessarily loneliness) of the dark hours, my mind creates worlds and populates them with characters I would like to get to know. And, having done so, plants the seeds for future stories. How much easier to deal with these characters, with these ideas, in the calmness of the night, where one thousand and three other visions do not compete for my attention. How much easier to dream.

As an author, I find the night hours around the magical time of 3:00am the perfect haven in which to commit my ideas to ‘paper’. As a reader, I find the uninterrupted-by-the-flotsam-of-the-day time a safe harbour in which to imagine the worlds that others have created.

I live for 3:00am.

D.A. Boulter

For an update on my progress, check the ‘news’ section of this blog.