I do my best writing when I should be sleeping. Usually, there is no computer or paper and pencil. As I drift off, I write — ledes to the stories I have due later in the week, very clever blog-posts, 140-character masterpieces of Twitter, and some of the most scathing (and of course effective) letters to company executives, politicians, and writers I want to stalk.

If only I could harness my talents when I’m sitting in front of a computer.

Still, as my cousin Alexa used to say as a toddler, “I make a yivving” (in response to the question: are you comfortable — she was taught this by evil older relatives that were not me). That means I write — thousands of words every month, many of them for actual money.

Like many other writers, I find the hardest part of writing the actual starting. I don’t have trouble once I type that first word. I do the interviews, at night, as I drift off, I write the story in my head. Then in the morning I sit down at the desktop and…check Facebook, answer email, watch whatever clever video my brother has sent (doesn’t he have a job?). Maybe I do some writing, with the dog licking my elbow as I type.

As a teenager, I would do my homework while listening to music or watching TV. I liked the ambient noise, the built in breaks (commercials are usually long enough to finish a couple physics or calculus problems, do some French translation, read a few pages of Flaubert). And I was a highly successful student. Now, I do the same thing. I sit on the couch, as I am now, with my feet on the coffee table and the dog curled in a ball at my side (or stretched the length of the couch, pushing me into a small corner). The laptop is open, the TV is on — I’m waiting for the finale of Glee — and I’m writing. I pay half attention to the TV if it’s not a show I’m interested in and usually take about four hours to write a 16-page newsletter (7,500 words).

I don’t know how I became such a night-owl for actual work, along with the “work” I do as I drift off to sleep. But I know, as I gear up to write a book proposal — and hopefully a book after that — I will have to change my habits and learn to love writing during the day. If it’s not on the couch with the laptop, I’ll have to figure out somewhere for the dog to be aside from at my elbow. Hours of dog licking might get irritating.