When I have dizziness, nausea, and headaches from lack of sleep, I know I’m reaching my limit. Yesterday all of those were hammering my body pretty bad. Still I closed my eyes and couldn’t settle to sleep.
Instead of writing last night I watched tv. I’ve not watched tv except for an hour with Ken in the evenings in several weeks. Two episodes of Rizzoli and Isles and my eyes were drooping and it seemed like I was likely to sleep. The tv went off and I closed my eyes.
An hour later, I turned the light back and grabbed my computer. My mind wouldn’t shut down yet again. It isn’t that I’m lying there thinking about the story I’m working on. I have all sorts of other things going through my head that just won’t stop as well as listening to my head pounding and having a stitch in my side because my asthma is bugging me because I’ve had no sleep.
I wrote. I finished two scenes one of which was a battle from a different perspective. I’ll probably be adding more into that so it is more involved when I do the edits (or if I go back today). As I reached the end of the fight and flee scene my eyes were the only thing bugging me.
Before starting the next scene, I decided I’d try sleeping again. Ken woke me up around 2:30 to ask me something. To be fair, I think he thought I was awake. I thought great, now I’ll be up for a while. However, I finally got back to sleep and when my alarm went off I was deeply asleep. I opted to turn it off and not go to work so I could catch up on some sleep.
I slept solidly for a while and then dozed for a couple of hours allowing myself to slowly wake up and acclimate to the world. It felt good to actually sleep. I still have a headache but that is normal after so long without sleep I think.
My body finally overruled my brain. Now the test will be to see if I can sleep reasonably tonight. I have a few things to do at home but I’m going to work on writing my story. It is pulling me – even above my other writing tasks. While I’ve got the momentum, I’d love to finish a rough draft. Then it can also go in the to-do pile.