The last 14+ hours have been weird. Weird good, though - in a way. I had an abstract for a presentation I'm doing in April that was due today. I was working on that - definitely a different style of writing. Of course, I would much rather be spending time with my characters and writing my book. But, I had to focus. So, that I did. I got the research, references and the abstract itself done in a few hours. By the time I was done, it was "bedtime". One problem though - I hadn't really written much and I wanted... well, needed to.
So, it was 10:30pm and I stayed up doing miscellaneous things as well as trying to get some writing done. Please understand that if I don't go to sleep "early" I won't get much sleep at all, at least lately. I've been getting up at 3am or 4am the last several weeks. So, going to sleep at midnight, I knew that I would probably wake up at 3am or 4am. I hoped I could at least sleep until my alarm went off at 5:30am, but I doubted it. Sure enough, I was up just before 4am. The thing is, I can't really hate that I wake up that early, because I wake up with ideas floating through my head about my characters.
So, it's 4am and I'm thinking of my story where I had left off before I went to sleep. It's kind of like it was when I was in school and I'd get stuck on a math problem. I'd go to sleep then wake up in the middle of the night knowing how to solve it. Not sure if that happens to anyone else, but it does to me. Apparently, now it's happening to me with my writing. A part that I've been trying to figure out and think about in my waking hours, seemed to get worked out when I slept and I woke up knowing what was going to happen. I laid in bed going over and over it. I didn't want to physically get up at that point, because I really needed to get some rest. But I replayed it so many times, that I couldn't forget it. I loved it!
I didn't get too much of a chance to write it down before leaving for work. But I was okay with that, like I said, I wasn't going to forget it.
Then the next thing happened... another epiphany. As I was driving to work, I had another flash of a scene that was perfect and belonged in the chapter I was working on. But now, I'm driving 65 mph on the freeway and can't write it down. Unlike lying in bed, I can't go over it in detail because I'm trying to drive (and not crash into others - that would be bad). I actually considered pulling over to the side of the freeway to write it down. But I couldn't be late for work. If I pulled over, I would lose track of time and be late. I kept driving. When I got to my exit, I got to a signal light. I seriously considered pulling out my netbook to type out the dialogue I heard. But, again, I didn't. I thought about it again at the next light too. I just wanted to get to my classroom so I could write.
Naturally, when I got to my classroom, I was so anxious that it because hard to write. I had to relax my mind enough to get it out of my head and into my computer. I managed to get it out just before the first bell rang and students started to arrive for class. I love that addition to the chapter. There's so much "hidden" stuff to it... hidden to the characters themselves. But perfect for the overall life of them.
Okay, maybe that wasn't the last 14+ hours, that just happened during the 4am and 7:20am. So, more like a 3.5 hour period. A lot of ideas and clarity in that time.
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