Tag: sleep

Obnoxiously Early

by eileentroemel, posted in Writing

Sunday I was up at 6:30 which for me on the weekend is too early.  I slept from 3:00 am to 6:00 and would have liked more sleep but by 6:30 I knew it wasn’t going to happen.  The good thing about being up that early – I got a lot of writing things done. 

I finished another step in pre-production for another poetry book.  I redid the cover for Secret Past and uploaded it to all the places as well as several other items on my to do list.  I worked on production of Moments in Spirit and failed miserably at making it through the process.  It is available electronically through Smashwords but there are issues (background not with the text) and I need to spend more time on it. 

After a couple of hours fussing with the file trying to figure out what wasn’t working and not getting it to work, I gave up and hit my recliner.  I worked on the story I’ve been working on for a week.  I decided to show more of the antagonist in this story.  There are flashes of her throughout the story but I actually took the time to write up a synopsis of her. 

Normally I don’t do this as I like my character so just develop.  However, with her it will have to be more subtle.  I won’t be telling her story per se but overlapping her story with the protagonists.  This means I have to work harder to show who she is. 

Writing the synopsis and little scenes for her.  It helps me to keep her darker.  I haven’t written a lot of dark characters and it was kind of fun to tap into motivations that I don’t normally explore.  With good characters it is all about protection, overcoming, and higher purpse type qualities.  With a bad character it is much more self -motivated – gathering power, me oriented desires, and revenge at any slights, real or otherwise.

I don’t know that the little scenes for her will make it into the story. I think some of them will have to but they help me see how someone like her would work.  She’s power hungry and she likes being that way.  I like that. 

I know there are at least eight major scenes left in this book.  I’m sure there will be others as I illustrate how the main characters live and adjust to their new life together.  I’m already at over 43,000 words and can’t wait to move forward. 

I want to be careful not to let the details bog down the story.  No one wants to read lengthy descriptions on all the details in a life.  It gets tedious.  It will be a matter of finding the right balance between giving the details and keeping the adventure and action moving forward.  The more I think about it the more excited I get about it.  It will be fun to see it develop and expand into more than just some strange imagining in my head.

Scenes

by eileentroemel, posted in Writing
I finished off most of the scenes for my story I had thought up.  I got about halfway through a scene and realized I didn’t know the purpose of the scene.  It always makes me pause.  I figured I’d take a break and let my mind simmer on it for a bit.
Last night I was planning to write more but opted to watch some tv.  I went to bed early and actually fell asleep without it being a huge struggle (thankfully).  This morning as I’m showering, the entire rest of the story just came to me.  I have a dozen scenes written down – they will turn in to the rest of the plot.  What’s more the climax will lead to a second book I think. 
I never have titles – not ever.  I struggle to get titles because I can never seem to find something catchy, quirky, or fitting for the book.  In my head I come up with whatever fits at the moment for a working title.  With this story – I have a title, though I’ll probably do some research to see if it is common.  I also have a title for the next one too and have a rough idea of the plot I want to do for that one. 
This morning I’m working on items on my to do list.  I’ve crossed off several and hope to continue the progress.  Ken is off doing the errands which leaves me free to either write or work on the to do list.  Perhaps I’m getting back on track after my week of no sleep.  If that is what it took, I’m going to count the lack of sleep as a blessing – though I’m not sure Ken would he had to put up with me being cranky.

Sleep has returned to my life and – not surprisingly – I feel better.  I got a solid six hours last night which for me is good.  I feel like I can face and tackle the issues I wasn’t able to for the last week.  It is just a matter of working my way through each task.  

Sleep isn’t Necessary – Right?

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing

I tried really hard to be good and go to sleep early last night.  I lay in the dark trying to shut down my mind but it just didn’t work. 

My niece rescued me from tossing and turning for hours by calling.  After I talked to her, I knew it was hopeless to try to sleep so I worked on a story.  I went from 7600 words to 15000.  I also know the next three or four steps in the story.

At 11:00 I tried to go to sleep but only slept for an hour and then I was awake again.  The rest of the night was hit or miss with only one long stretch of about an hour and a half sleeping. 

Plan for tonight – not even try sleeping until I’ve written for several hours.  I’m not turning my computer off until I can’t see the screen anymore.  Maybe then I’ll get a stretch of sleep longer than an hour or so. 

On the plus side, the story I’ve been writing is developing nicely.  The characters are becoming stronger, secondary characters are falling into place, and the plot is coming along.  I have the next three or four scenes planned out in my head; I just have to get them down on paper. 

I’m also losing large chunks of time in the evenings with writing.  I look at the clock in the early evening and the next time I look it is several hours later.  The only disturbance is when someone calls or texts me or when I get annoyed with the music I’m listening to and decide it is time for quiet in the house. 

Sleeping Late

by eileentroemel, posted in Life

Yesterday I had a wonderful day with friends over from work to help me celebrate graduating in December and turning 50.  We had good food, good conversation, and a good time all around.

I indulged in one very small alcoholic drink.  Normally I don’t drink.  I just don’t get a lot of enjoyment out of it for the most part.  Yesterday I thought – one small drink with very little alcohol just for kicks.  Ken made it with less than a quarter shot of vodka.  
I’ve now found one more thing that affects my gout – alcohol.  Last night my gout flared up and by three in the morning I was in severe pain.  I could barely walk to the bathroom.  I took Tylenol.  This morning when my alarm went off I contemplated going to work.  I decided having just gotten over one medium level flare I would sleep late.  I woke up enough to take my gout specific meds, text my boss and my student workers and go back to sleep.
When my niece called after ten I was in a dozing state of should I wake up or not.  With the phone call, I did get up and chat with her.  My foot felt much better.  I’ve still got some twinges though so I’m going to take it easy and not push myself today.  I’ll forage in the kitchen for stuff I can grab and go.  
No more alcohol for me.  I’m already avoiding chocolate and beef (though I allow myself the occasional treat).  If I react this badly to alcohol, I will avoid it without a second thought.  The nice thing about this is it isn’t hard for me to give up.   
The sleep helped a lot I think.  It gave the meds a chance to work and kept me off my feet.  Sleep is very restorative when it comes to many things and in this instance helped me a great deal.  I’m just hoping I can get to sleep tonight.  

How Did You Sleep?

by eileentroemel, posted in Life

For the last five months I’ve been sleeping in the recliner.  The last time I tried to sleep in my bed I woke up hurting more than when I went to sleep.  After consulting with Ken about how he was sleeping we decided our old mattress / box springs had to go (as I mentioned yesterday). 
The bed arrived and it is much better than the old one but I’m still having problems sleeping in it.  I slept for two hours before I woke up with a horrible back ache.  I stayed in bed – partly because I was so tired and partly because I thought it was just my back / muscles acting up – and spent the rest of the night in the bed.  I woke up regularly in pain – back not legs mostly.  Now I have to decide whether it was just a bad night because of the level of pain I was in yesterday or if it was due to the new bed.  I’ll try it again but not tonight as I work tomorrow and need to be able to function more fully. 

Ken, on the other hand, slept better so that is a good thing.  At least he got a good night’s sleep and feels better this morning.  

Back to Work

by eileentroemel, posted in Uncategorized

I didn’t hate getting up.  It was good to go back to work and get into the groove.  I chatted with two of the new faculty and helped them settle in a bit more.  However, over 110 emails to weed through today.  It took me until 2:00 to catch up and I’ve weeded out and handled all the ones that were simple to do.  Now I need to go back and look at the tougher ones and figure out what I’m doing.

No naps for me today even though I wanted one about 8:00 am.  I tackled the emails today and started on some of the stuff on my desk.  Tomorrow I’m going to tackle the rest of my desk.  Hopefully by Friday I’ll have it all back under control. 

For now, I’m looking for bed before midnight.  I was going to say before 11 but realized it was already 10:30 – that isn’t going to be enough time to deal with the emails (MORE OF THEM) for my personal account and get to bed before 11.  Midnight it will hopefully be. 

Halfway

by eileentroemel, posted in Uncategorized

I’m halfway through my vacation and enjoying it thoroughly.  I have made progress on the two stories I wanted to and I’ve gotten Stephanie’s afghan down to a row and half left.  For the rest of the week I’m hoping to add more to my writing time and finish off her afghan. 

I also have been struggling with sleep.  Not that I can’t sleep but that I’m sleeping odd hours.  I know that may not be a problem for most people – it is all part of being on vacation right?  Well for me when I get out of habit on my sleep I struggle with getting back into cycle.  The rest of the week I’m going to try to go to bed about midnight (instead of 2 am) and get up by 7 – 8 in the morning.  That way when I go back to work next week, I can at least be close to what a normal schedule should be. 
I was struggling with my one story.  I’m at a point where there needs to be a lot of battling and fight scenes except I don’t want the book to be all about the battles.  I want it to be a mixture of battles and struggle with peaceful negotiations.  This is hard to describe without going into lengthy detail about the story.  I was stuck in this spot where one of the main characters was in yet another battle but I didn’t want it to be a battle.  I was struggling with what to do with the scene and the character.  What he is doing is vital to the story so I can’t pull him out of the situation.  Being the all seeing author, I introduced a new character who changed the way the scene played out.  It worked out well.  Now I just have to do a couple more chapters to somewhat conclude this leg and go back to one of the other main characters who is busy doing more diplomatic things.  Progress and a solution – I say that is a good day of writing!

Domino Effect

by eileentroemel, posted in Uncategorized
Vicki went to bed early tonight, she’s got a cold.  I wandered into my desk with no more intentions than to play a few games and go to bed.  Mondays are rough for me – as I’ve said. 
This is not what happened though.  I started out answering emails.  A couple of my writer friends from a group responded to my request for them to answer interview questions.  These responses led me to working on the report for my book editing class.  From there I went to checking my school / work email, which led to my mail box nearly being full so I had to delete a bunch of stuff – like thousands of emails.  From there I checked my D2L account.  This is the school account where I have a link for each class and then I can turn in assignments, get information for the class and a variety of other things. 
That led to playing on Facebook.  I actually played the couple of games I was intending.  By the time I was done with that it was 10:00.  You would think I would just go to bed right?  Nope. 
While playing those games I was thinking about the story I turned in to my fiction writing class which I have to edit.  I switched over to editing it.  I have the first chapter done.  Oh it started out as a short story but I’m pretty sure it will be a novel or novella by the time I’m done. 
When I closed that for the night, I fell into my old habit of playing the Hoyle games I have on my computer.  I’m obsessed with Rummy 500, Spite & Malice, and Backgammon.  I have to play at least one game of each before I can go to bed.  I think I do this because it helps to shut down my brain.  After editing, I need the creative flow to slow enough so I can get to sleep and not have to pop up several times over the next hour to jot down just one more idea.
This lovely domino effect has led me to 11:45 pm and not in bed before midnight – yet again.  It is completely my own fault.  However, I’m glad I got all this stuff done.  It means I’ll have one or two fewer things to do over the weekend – I hope.

Back at Work

by eileentroemel, posted in Uncategorized
I can’t say it was an awful day back at work.  I got back into the swing of things quite quickly.  Napping was certainly something I wanted by about mid day but I got caught up on emails and other things. 
I have to say I am impressed with all the work my student workers got done while I was gone.  They assembled furniture and rearranged furniture.  They did a variety of tasks which cleared up a number of tasks for the department. 
For only being off eleven days, I struggled a bit with the schedule again.  I just hate mornings.  I would rather start at noon.  I know the world doesn’t revolve around my sleep schedule but really 5:30 was too early this morning.  I was so out of it that I forgot to take utensils with me so I could eat my lunch. 
I’m sure it will take me a few days to get back into the swing of things.  I’m hoping that I will get back to it quickly because I have new classes to tackle in two weeks.

Vicki and I spent a nice quiet evening listening to music and reading.  I actually managed to say at the end of this chapter I’m quitting and did it.  This rarely happens for me – I usually read three more chapters.  I’m going to attempt to do the nearly impossible and go to bed earlier than 11:30 tonight…

Insomnia Strikes Again

by eileentroemel, posted in Uncategorized
Last night I was a responsible adult and went to bed around 11 pm.  This is good for me as I like the night and would stay up till 2 or 3 am if I didn’t have to be on the job at 7:45 am.  However, last night I should have just stayed up.  I didn’t sleep a wink.  I spent the night trying to sleep.  I got up once when Ken got up and went back to bed thinking I might be able to sleep as I was so tired.
Sadly, that didn’t happen.  I heard everything he did.  Every noise annoyed me and kept me awake.  Totally not his fault as he is normally very quiet in the morning.  At 5:30 my alarm went off and I debated staying home.  I hit the snooze as is my habit.  I thought I’ll see how I feel in nine minutes.  I hit it until 6:30 when I realized that even if I stayed home I wasn’t going to be able to sleep. 
The bad part is the lack of sleep cascades into so many other issues.  My pain level goes up.  My allergies (with the lovely humidity we are having) are overreacting to the weather, as is my asthma.
The funny thing is you would think I would be grumpy.  On a level I am but at this point I’m just well tired.  I’m sure I’ll go through the silly and giddy stage and drop into the crabby as all get out stage (that is the worst).  Once I reach this stage it is best for me to isolate myself (sleep is good but not always attainable).