I write seven days a week, starting at 4 o'clock in the morning

Host: The night was a sheet of velvet, torn only by the pale glow of a desk lamp. Outside, the city still slept — the streets empty, the sky bruised with faint starlight. Inside a narrow apartment, a clock ticked toward 4:00 a.m. The air was still, heavy with the scent of coffee and paper — a temple of discipline built from silence and ritual.

Jack sat at the window, his eyes hollow yet sharp, the faint light catching the edge of his jawline. Across from him, Jeeny stood near a bookshelf, her hands brushing the spines of worn novels, her breath forming small clouds in the cold.

Jeeny: “Dan Brown once said, ‘I write seven days a week, starting at 4 o'clock in the morning, including Christmas.’”

Jack: chuckling softly “Of course he did. That’s the kind of madness success demands — the religion of routine. Most people pray at dawn; he just writes instead.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s his prayer. Some people seek God in churches. Others seek Him in sentences.”

Jack: “Or maybe it’s just obsession, Jeeny. You can dress it up with romantic language, but it’s still the same beast. Writing at 4 a.m., even on Christmas? That’s not devotion, that’s compulsion.”

Host: The lamp’s glow trembled as if breathing, throwing their shadows against the walls — tall, uneasy, alive. A faint wind pressed against the windowpane, and the sound of a distant church bell broke the stillness.

Jeeny: “But isn’t compulsion just another name for calling? You don’t wake before dawn for something you merely like — you do it because something inside you demands it.”

Jack: “Or because something inside you is broken. There’s a thin line between passion and punishment. Dan Brown’s not writing — he’s escaping. The man’s a slave to his own success.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But I’d rather be enslaved to purpose than freed into emptiness. Do you think Michelangelo slept late? Or that Van Gogh took weekends off?”

Jack: “And look how they ended up — lonely, exhausted, mad. There’s nothing noble about burning yourself for your craft. It’s still fire, and it still hurts.”

Jeeny: “But it also illuminates, Jack.”

Host: The clock ticked, a slow and relentless heartbeat in the quiet. Jeeny’s eyes caught the faint reflection of the city lights, her expression both tender and unyielding.

Jack: “You sound like one of those people who believe suffering is artistic currency. That the more you bleed, the more your words are worth.”

Jeeny: “Not suffering, Jack — surrender. There’s a difference. Suffering is what life gives you. Surrender is what you offer back.”

Jack: “You think writing at 4 a.m. is surrender? I think it’s fear — fear that if he stops, the magic will fade, the world will forget him.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe it’s faith — faith that the muse still waits in the dark, whispering only to those who show up.”

Host: A car passed outside, its headlights briefly illuminating the room — dust particles drifted, suspended in the beam like tiny, golden ghosts.

Jack: “Faith. That’s a convenient word. But I call it addiction. You get your hit of meaning each morning and call it discipline. It’s not faith; it’s dependency.”

Jeeny: “You’re wrong. Addiction consumes. Discipline constructs. The difference is direction. Addiction wants to feel alive; discipline wants to create life.”

Jack: “Spoken like someone who’s never missed a deadline.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “Or like someone who’s missed too many and finally learned what it means to show up.”

Host: Jack’s hand moved toward the coffee mug, the steam coiling upward in lazy spirals. His eyes flickered with the faintest trace of memory — the echo of his own early mornings, the typewriter keys, the silence before the world woke.

Jack: “You know, I used to write at that hour too. Before it all turned into noise. I thought discipline would save me — that if I just worked harder, the words would mean more. But all it did was make me tired.”

Jeeny: “Maybe you stopped too soon. Maybe you were one page away from meaning.”

Jack: “Or maybe meaning is the one thing that doesn’t come from force. Maybe Dan Brown wakes up early not because he’s devoted, but because he’s terrified — terrified of stillness.”

Jeeny: “Maybe he’s terrified of wasting what was given to him.”

Host: The silence grew again, denser now. The clock struck four, its chime soft but certain. Jack’s gaze lifted, following the sound as though it were a reminder of something once sacred, now merely routine.

Jeeny: “I think of it this way — when everyone else sleeps, he listens. He writes when the world is too quiet to interrupt. That kind of discipline isn’t about control, Jack. It’s about trust — trusting that the words will come if you just keep showing up.”

Jack: “That sounds like religion again. Writers as monks, keyboards as altars.”

Jeeny: “Maybe art is a kind of monasticism. You give your life to something that will never thank you, never love you back — but somehow it makes you whole.”

Jack: “Or it just keeps you from falling apart.”

Jeeny: “Either way, it keeps you alive.”

Host: The first light of dawn began to touch the window. The sky was bruised blue and pale gold. Jack watched it spread across the room, the shadows slowly retreating into the corners.

Jack: “You ever wonder what drives someone to keep going like that — seven days a week, every morning, no breaks?”

Jeeny: “Maybe it’s not about drive at all. Maybe it’s about belonging — to a rhythm, a ritual, something that anchors you when the rest of life feels unsteady. Writing becomes a kind of home.”

Jack: “And when it stops?”

Jeeny: “Then the walls collapse, and you build again. That’s what writers do.”

Jack: “Sounds exhausting.”

Jeeny: “It is. But so is breathing. You don’t stop because it’s hard.”

Host: The sunlight now spilled fully across the desk, illuminating a pile of scribbled pages and an unopened letter. The lamp still burned, though it no longer needed to.

Jack: “You think he writes on Christmas too?”

Jeeny: nodding slowly “Yes. Because creation doesn’t take holidays. The muse doesn’t wear a calendar.”

Jack: “So even on the day the world rests, he keeps working?”

Jeeny: “Not working — listening. Maybe that’s when the silence finally answers.”

Host: Jack’s eyes softened, the lines on his face shifting — the look of a man who understood too well the cost of devotion, yet missed its clarity.

Jeeny closed the notebook she had been holding, her hands resting upon it like one might rest them on a Bible.

The room filled with the faint hum of morning — birds, footsteps, the whisper of a world waking.

Jeeny: “The writer’s curse isn’t the need to create, Jack. It’s the inability to stop. The page is both sanctuary and sentence.”

Jack: “And maybe that’s what makes it holy.”

Jeeny: “Yes. To write is to worship, whether you believe or not.”

Host: The camera would have pulled back then — the window glowing, the desk littered with papers, two souls framed against the quiet fire of a new day.

Outside, the sun rose like an act of faith, and inside, the clock kept ticking — steady, relentless, sacred — like the heartbeat of a man who still writes, even on Christmas.