Prompt #56 (b?) What keeps you up at night?
Story.
Given any opportunity- a weekend or a holiday, for example- I switch immediately to 4 a.m. to noon which seems to be my natural inclination. At 4 a.m. I fall asleep without effort, like other people seem to be able to do at 9 or 10:00. Before 4 a.m. I tend to lie awake hearing dialogues, watching scenes, formulating letters, contemplating plots…
If I start reading a book in the evening, I must finish the book. Unless I’ve already read it, or it is really boring, I pick up a book and finish it in basically one sitting. If I happen to have a whole series at hand, the rest of the world will stop as I read through from first book to last without a break.
This tendency to nightly story telling probably originated with the bedtime stories my father told me as a kid. I was one who hid my light to read into the night. Sometimes I heard the morning bird chorus and fell asleep only briefly before getting up for school in a couple of hours. If I don’t have another author’s story in my head, I tend to lie in bed telling my own, by making sense of the life story I’m living, creating stronger dialogue and better plot lines. I’ve been crafting stories to myself forever.
Stories keep me up all night.
Shawn L. Bird 
Thank you Shawn for bringing me back to a place that I didn’t even know I missed until I read that you visited there in your youth as well! I was that kid… with the flashlight. Only, I didn’t use a flashlight. My parents would leave the hall light on as they went about their evening activities. I remember laying there, twisting my arms in a way that I am so sure only a contortionist could, trying to get enough light to hit my page so that I could read the next paragraph. Always stopping at the end of the next paragraph…. ok, well, the next… or maybe even the one after that..1am sure this chapter is almost over, the next one is short… Hey, is that the sound of birds?
lol. I’d use my bedside lamp, with a towel rolled up and pushed against the bottom of the door to keep the light from leaking through.
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I once babysat for a single mom who laughed as she told me that her little guy who frequently slept backwards, need the door left open as he was afraid of the dark… It didn’t take long to realise he was watching tv. I shut off tv and read, ruining his routine. I reported to mom as well! If he’d been reading, I would have been more sympathetic. lol