For the last week or so, I’ve not been sleeping well or long. This is just part of the cycle I go through so I’m not unused to it. There are actually some benefits to not sleeping.
Obviously, I’ve been reading more and enjoying the stories. It is great to fall into a book and get lost in the characters and plot. It helps to pass the time when I can’t sleep in a good way. It doesn’t lessen the tiredness but at least makes the inability to sleep pleasant.
I started the last book in the series I’m reading and struggled with the beginning. It is very dark and I hope the author will lighten it up but it went to a place I struggled to read through. I will go back to it when my mood changes.
Instead of reading last night, I started a story. It has been drifting in my head for a few days and I thought it would go away but it took root and wouldn’t let go. I started writing after Ken went to bed about seven. I pulled out my netbook and flashdrive, opened Word and just started typing.
I had no hesitation – well except when I had to come up with names. There are times I would just like it to be him or her. I typed and the story fell onto the page. Except for the occassional drink of water, I created the story. At 11:00 I got a cramp in my hands. That was a first for me. But I realized I’d been typing for four hours with little interruption.
To be honest, I was a little annoyed with both the cramp and the time. I had only a short start to the story out of my head and had so much more I wanted to get down. Normally when I see it is so late, I’ll start thinking about wrapping up what I’m doing – not last night. I dove right back into telling the story.
By 12:00 I realized I had to quit in order to get up for work. I tried to finish up a scene but the next scene came to mind. I just wanted to keep going with the story. I forced myself to stop at 12:40.
Normally, I’m so tired after a marathon writing like this that I fall almost immediately asleep. This didn’t happen. I think it was after 2:40 before I finally fell asleep. My alarm was set for 5:00 so this would have given me less than 3 hours of sleep. I’ll generally hit my snooze for an hour so that would have given me about four hours of sleep which is usually enough to get me through.
Unfortunately at 4:55 my eyes popped open and I realized I was awake for the morning. I hoped and reset my alarm to 6:00 and tried to go back to sleep. It didn’t work. I just tossed and turned more.
It will be a long day with a day-long headache as part of the mix. I won’t bother trying to go to sleep early tonight because it won’t work. I’ll probably just work on my story.
The best thing is – I got 7600 words into my story. I’ll have to start a spreadsheet on this as I’ve got details I want to keep track of and I feel like this could be more detailed as I go forward.
I don’t know if I’ll sleep tonight. It is hit or miss at this stage but if I don’t I’ll probably work on the story to see how much further I can get with it.
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