On a book deadline, I pick 1 or 2 albums and 1 or 2 movies for late-night writing sessions, as I do my best work between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. Polling the most prolific authors I know, more than 90% do their best work when others are sleeping, whether they start after 10 p.m. or wake up well before 6 a.m. Personally, I’ll play a movie on mute in the background to avoid feeling isolated, and listen to 1 or 2 albums per session, repeating both the movie and the music over and over. This means that I’ve “seen” some movies literally 100-plus times, as I might play a single film 3 to 6 times per
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