There is a strange loneliness to the night. The world slows down. Everyone is asleep, the traffic fades, notifications stop buzzing, and even the walls seem quieter. For most people, night is a signal to rest. For me, it has always been something else entirely. It is the hour when the author inside me wakes up.
For as long as I can remember, I have lived with chronic insomnia. Sleep and I have never really been friends. I have tried all the usual remedies people recommend with reassuring confidence. Chamomile tea before bed. Read a book. Soft music. Workout. Counting sheep. Sleeping pills. The endless promises of “this will definitely help you sleep.” Yet somehow, the nights always stretched longer than they should.
There is a peculiar frustration that comes with lying awake while the rest of the world sleeps peacefully. The silence becomes louder. The clock seems crueler. Minutes crawl into hours, and before you know it, it is 3 AM and you are still staring at the ceiling, bargaining with your own mind to switch off for just a little while.
Then, in 2018, I became an author.
And somehow, the insomnia became even more complicated.
Because now, sleeplessness no longer arrived empty-handed. It came carrying scenes, dialogues, characters, twists, and entire worlds demanding to be written down immediately. The quiet nights that once felt like punishment slowly became creative battlegrounds.
There have been countless moments when I have finally managed to close my eyes, only for a single line of dialogue to appear out of nowhere.
A character whispering something brilliant.
A plot twist that suddenly makes everything connect.
A forgotten scene demanding to exist.
And in that moment, sleep loses the battle instantly.
I have learned that the worst thing an author can do is trust memory at 1 AM. The brain makes promises it never keeps. “You will remember this in the morning,” it says confidently. You never do. By sunrise, the magical dialogue that felt revolutionary at night disappears like smoke.
So I get up.
Sometimes half asleep.
Sometimes annoyed.
Sometimes inspired beyond measure.
I walk to my laptop or grab my phone and begin typing in the darkness while everyone else dreams peacefully. There is something beautifully chaotic about writing at those hours. The sentences feel rawer. The emotions feel more honest. Maybe because exhaustion strips away all pretence. At that time, your imagination does not care about perfection. It only cares about expression.
The funny thing is that insomnia and writing almost seem designed for each other. Writers are observers by nature. We notice things others ignore. We replay conversations years after they happened. We imagine alternate endings to ordinary moments. Our minds rarely stay still long enough for sleep to arrive naturally.
And the night amplifies everything.
Every memory becomes sharper.
Every emotion becomes heavier.
Every idea becomes louder.
Some of my favourite story ideas were born during nights I desperately wanted to sleep. Scenes that readers later praised were once scribbled into my notes app under dim light while the world remained silent outside my window.
Of course, there is a cost to it.
The exhaustion catches up eventually. The body keeps score even when creativity refuses to. There are mornings when coffee becomes survival rather than comfort. Days when your eyes ache from too little rest and too many thoughts. Nights when you genuinely wish your brain would simply allow you to sleep like everyone else.
P.S. I am happy to share that it’s been seven days since I stayed away from coffee; kudos to me!
But creativity is rarely convenient.
Stories do not arrive according to office hours. Inspiration does not care whether it is midnight or morning. The author inside you speaks when it wants to speak, and sometimes the only choice is whether you will listen.
So now, I no longer fight those quiet nights the way I once did.
I still wish for better sleep sometimes. I still envy people who can place their heads on a pillow and drift away peacefully within minutes. But I have also accepted that somewhere within my insomnia lives the storyteller I became.
The sleepless nights gave me frustration, yes.
But they also gave me stories.
And perhaps that is the strange trade-off of being a writer: losing sleep while chasing dreams.
And somewhere in between the hunger to sleep peacefully and love for the 80’s, Camera on His Should was born.
The story is set in my favourite time period: the iconic 1980s. I grew up in a small city in India during that era, and anyone who remembers the 80s knows just how vibrant, colourful, and unforgettable those years were. For a long time, I dreamed of setting one of my stories in that decade, and Camera on His Shoulder finally gave me the chance to bring that vision to life.
In this neo-noir odyssey set in 1980s India, perception bleeds into betrayal. As Shah unravels a labyrinth of forgeries, smuggling rings, and false identities trailing a missing woman’s cryptic path, the watcher’s gaze proves pivotal in piercing the mystery.
Camera on His Shoulder will be available on Amazon in Paperback and ebook formats. The ebook will also be available on all leading ebook platforms worldwide. The paperback book will also be available at selected Indigo stores here in Scarborough, Ontario.
Thank you, and I can’t wait for you to experience Camera on His Shoulder!
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