(Originally posted on LiveJournal)
Now, I’d catnapped through part of the evening yesterday (I haven’t really been getting enough sleep on weeknights). And then at the very end of the evening, I was reading a story about storytelling, which was inspiring me (okay, so it was Book 4 of James A. Owen’s graphic Starchild, if you must know) . But I looked at the clock and it was after midnight, and my screenwriters group was meeting in the morning.
So I climbed into bed and tried to go to sleep. Ha.
Good storytelling does this thing to me. It’s like charging up my storytelling batteries. The brain starts whirring, spinning ideas, tweaking things, trying out things. You’d think it was caffeine or something.
So there I am lying in bed, trying to get to sleep with one part of my brain, while another part of the brain is very clearly clicking away. Worse (in one sense), there are some pretty good ideas. So, the “I want to go to sleep” part of my brain says, “Write it down in the morning. I want to get some rest.” Which lasts all of five minutes, if that much. Because the other part of the brain knows full well that if I didn’t write it down promptly, I probably would not remember it in the morning. And regarding at least one of the ideas, I’d probably regret that.
So, I flip back the covers get up, turn on lights, dig out my “Idea Notebook” (wherein I record story ideas and scenes that come to me in advance of the “regular” progress of the text), and write down the ideas.
Then I go back to bed, and quickly fall asleep.
It took about 15 minutes or so to get the ideas written down, though. So it was after one by the time I fell asleep.
This afternoon, it got me curious about what happens with other writers. What jazzes others with ideas? And what do you do to deal with your late-night invasion of ideas.
Comments
lisa_marli – Mar. 29th, 2008
