Compartmentalization taken to its extreme

Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes under a variety of pen names in a host of genres, including crime fiction (as Kris Nelscott.) What’s even more interesting, as she tells the Lincoln City, Oregon News Guard, is how her writing schedule is tailored to her pseudonyms:

She writes under five pen names (Kris Nelscott,

Kristine Grayson, Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Kris Rusch) in different

genres (mystery, romance, science fiction/fantasy and historical

fiction). She switches between the genres, always working on several

projects at a time and saving Fridays as short-story days. Writing is a

full-time job and she does most of her writing at night – sometimes on

a schedule dictated by her characters.

"I couldn’t write about Smokey before 7 p.m. anyway," she said.
"I work until midnight and usually start around 6 or 7 p.m. It’s a
seven-day-a-week job."

Fortunately, her husband, Dean Wesley Smith, is an accomplished
science fiction writer (they’ve co-authored "Roswell," "Star Trek" and
"X-Men" books, to name a few) and has a similar schedule. They’ve
converted their garage into his-and-hers writing space.

In a way, that actually makes sense to me, that you can only write about certain characters at certain times of the day. Whether it’s related to weather or mood or light or dark, I don’t know, but I’m curious — does anyone else work in similar fashion?