Insomnia

I have stared at the screen for the past thirty minutes. My brain is swimming inside my skull, grasping for focus. Yet it evades me. Why am I so lost today?

Well, let me tell ya. Insomnia. Vicious, evil insomnia. Oh, and the worst kind--to me anyways.

Last night, I decided to go to bed early. So, the irony begins. It sets the stage. The characters appear -- Me, Hubs, and The Boy.

I climbed into bed, saying the words, "want to go to sleep" repeatedly, hoping Hubs would catch onto my not so subtle clues. By 11:30, I gave up, ignored the TV, and rolled over. It was earlier than normal, but not as early as I had hoped, but it would have to do.

Hubs asked a few questions. He received an unintelligible, mumbled response of "Mmm, sleepin".

The moment that I was still, I was out. Like a light. Quickly and totally unconscious.

At 1:30, the evil insomnia crept in through the window, slid into my bed and placed a hand upon my forehead. Like the lid of a jack-n-the-box, my eyes simultaneously flipped open with an audible thud.

Following a normal routine, I flipped the pillow over to the cool side, flopped over to my other side, and shut my eyes tight. At that point, the little hamster that controls the gears in my noggin began an intense run of the wheel. Flip. Eyes open once more.

I've suffered from insomnia before, so I opened up my bag of tricks. Count backwards from 100, concentrate on breathing in and out, focus on a spot behind my eyelids. It was slowly working.

Then I hear The Bear. The man beside me lets out this ghastly snore, startling me from my relaxed state, and sending my heart racing down the block. Then, I did the worst thing possible. I looked at the clock. 3:30

The hamster runs faster on his wheel. I've been doing this for two hours. I can't miss that much sleep. This is bad. I'll never get back to sleep. Meanwhile, Hubs continues to try to suck all the oxygen from the room, run it through a wood grinder, and whistle it back out.

Ahh! I try the tricks once more. 100,99,98 SNORE! Breathe in, breathe out. SNORE!

I don't think I hit him with a pillow. I think that was just an Ally McBeal internal visual, but I can't be certain.

I found ear plugs, and looked once more at the clock. 4:45  I cussed a string of profanities that would make George Carlin proud. I climbed back in bed and fought my way back to sleep. I'm sure there was sleep in there, but I didn't feel it nor remember it.

The next thing that I remember is the faint sound of a child crying. The Girl has been sick recently, and so I jumped up, tripped over a Croc, not my Croc, and rounded the hallway. At this point, I realized it wasn't The Girl. It was The Boy. Oh, no. He's caught it, I think.

"Baby, what's wrong?" I ask.

I focus my eyes, and now see his faint silhouette, light courtesy of the moon shining through the blinds. He is sitting on the toilet. He responds with a few more whimpers, and adds, "I was trying to go poop, and I slid, and my butt fell in the toilet."

All I could do was put my face in my hands. A real live face-palm.

"Son!"

"What, Mommy?", now using sweetest voice he could muster.

"Nothing."

I cleaned him up and pointed him back towards his bed.

"I'm not tired!" Insert an on the floor tantrum.

"Son, just go play in your room, but please be quite. Mommy just needs a few more minutes of sleep."

A lie, Mommy needed a full eight hours, but Mommy takes what she can get.

I head back to my room, climb into my bed, hug my pillow like it was my long lost BFF, and the alarm screams. A shrill yell that could wake the dead. I searched for snooze, gave up, and turned the whole thing off. I buried my head, and died to the world.

I don't know how much time passed before The Boy smacked me in the head with a granola bar and said, "Sun's up, Mommy."

I look at the clock, and yep, you guessed it--I was late.

I arrived at the office, completely worthless and slamming caffeine like its tequila on Spring Break. And no better for it. Seriously, I went to the break room for a glass of water, was holding the cup, and staring into the freezer. I don't know how long I was there. Just gone. The last brain cells evaporated. When I snapped out of it, I returned to my desk. Still no water. I wasn't going back. No telling where I would end up. On a plane next to Tyler Derdan, who knows.

So cheers writing buddies. Lord knows, you are no strangers to insomnia. What do you think is worse-not being able to fall asleep, or dozing off and not being able to stay asleep? What are some of your tricks for going back to sleep? Or just say hi, and make sure that my head hasn't floated away. 

Cycles of a Busy Writer

I honestly believe that once you accept the ebbs and flows of the writing world, the happier you’ll be. When I first started writing it was all I did. It was an all consuming absorption that pulled me away from other things such as fresh air and laundry. (Not minding the laundry so much.) But then it felt like my well was empty. I was terrified that it was writer’s block, or that the 60K words would never be completed into a complete book.

I went on with my life, feeling guilty for every moment that I wasn’t writing. After about a month, I got the bug again and cracked open the manuscript. Within another two months, it was finished. I immediately dove into another WIP, and about a month after that my mom came to visit for an entire week. Once again, I felt guilty for not touching the book, but knew I’d feel even worse to ignore her to spend time with imaginary people. She left, and once again the well was dry.

A month later, edits. I dove back into original WIP and ripped it apart. Once that was done, I started a third WIP. Two months in, school became so overwhelming that I didn’t have time to write anything but the papers that were required of me, leaving me in another period of ignoring my writing to take care of life.

That’s how it happens. We only have so much time in the day, and we can’t do it all. Well, we can do a little of all of it, a lot of some of it, or be submerged in one thing. When I am submerged in writing, my house looks like it has been ransacked by villains, mail piles up into leaning towers, hanging laundry equals piling it on top of the chest in my room, and dust bunnies learn to hop and help themselves to the carrots in the fridge.

Then something happens—life. I’m normally pretty good at balancing family, school, work, and writing. But sometimes unforeseen circumstances (and heck, sometimes planned events) throw my schedule completely off kilter. This time it was a combination of finals, a car wreck, and the removal of a wisdom tooth. No one was hurt in the car wreck, but it did total my car, leading me to car shopping and negotiating with insurance companies. However, the wisdom tooth was a great deal more pain than I had expected, and the meds were not the best for concentrating on writing. Just sayin. Any of these alone, and I probably would have continued plugging away at the newest WIP and the pile of revisions for Iron Thirst, but combined forget it. I lost.

In the past, I would let the guilt eat at me. But I have been doing this long enough that I have learned to trust that I will come back. I will write again. Stopping in order to catch up on life doesn’t mean that I have flaked, it means that other things require my attention more. Then once all is taken care of (including my own sanity), I can continue.

If you are the type of writer that has a full time job and other responsibilities, give yourself permission to stop and take breaks to make sure the rest of your life is not falling down. Writing can become an obsession, and you have to know when to stop long enough to make sure that you are nourishing your relationships, paying your bills, and cleaning--I don’t know--something. (Preferably before you stop showering, the electricity gets cut off, and your dog packs up and leaves.)

You have to be confident in your writing and the ebbs and flows of a writer’s cycle. They are different for each of us. Trust your instincts, and don’t be so hard on yourself if you need a week or two off. But do come back to it. That is key. The book will forgive you when you come back with an invigorated breath and a fresh vision, but it will not forgive if it’s left to collect dust, because you feel that it’s just too hard.

As for me, I wrapped up the line edits for Iron Thirst, and now I’m going to continue my little hiatus in order to put myself back in a good place. After my house and home life is back in order and I find that fresh vision (normally tucked at the bottom of either a great book or warm cup of coffee), then I will embark on the next writing journey. I think next on my list is to pick up either Craving Copper or The Fate Thieves, which have been in time out for a while. They are ready for some TLC. My most recent WIP, The Hunting Moon, is ready to take a little nap so it can work some things out. Two characters are fighting for the role of co-star. Iron Thirst has been fully revised, and is ready to be queried once I am mentally ready to embrace the no’s.

I pray that one day I can give my life to my writing. But until that day comes, I have to share my time with the many hats that I wear. And I’m ok with that. Because I would rather write a little – than not be able to write at all.

So, how do you juggle all that life throws at you and maintain your writing schedule? Do you allow yourself to take mental breaks? How do you motivate yourself to go back to your writing when the break is done?

Can't. Stop. Reading.

What makes a page turner? What about a book keeps you from sleeping?

At some point, each of us has come across a book that has grabbed us by both eyes and not let go. We’ve fought to put it down, and failed horribly. They’ve left us walking into work with dark circles under our eyes. Forced us to spend our lunch hours tearing through as many chapters as possible. Turned us into complete addicts.

Twilight did this to me, and though I loved them, it wasn’t the stellar writing – it was something else. Hunger Games is another that kept me up at night. Let’s go old school – Bridget Jones Diary. So what is it about these books? Are the pages lined with crack?

I went back and looked at some of the books that have done this to me to see what it was that made me cling to them, and choose reading versus a night out on the town.

Characters you genuinely care about – Becoming emotionally invested in a character, will keep you coming back with every spare minute you can muster. You know if it ends poorly—you will need to take a few days off to mourn. A character that you relate to and desperately want to see succeed.

Cliffhangers at the end of chapters – We naturally want to close a book at the end of a chapter versus the middle, but when the chapter ends with a car wreck—we HAVE to know who lives, who dies, and how the heck’s the Ferrari. So, we start the new chapter, and darn now we are back in the middle. Keep reading. Now, the body is missing. Well, where did it go? Next thing you know it’s 3:00 am, and you’re hiding in the closet with a flashlight trying not to wake the rest of the house.

Reverse Arc – A story has a natural arc. Each chapter is generally designed the same, building to the climax and then slowly bringing the reader back down. The reverse arc throws all that out the window- starting with action, covering slower parts in the middle of the chapter, and planting you back at the top of a climax at the end, propelling you into the next chapter.

Forget the drapes - Now, I personally have a tendency of skipping past the pages of beautifully written prose discussing the tiny butterfly pattern that is woven into the blue wallpaper. Couldn’t care less. I want to know where the heck did Hot Guy go, and is he the one holding the bloody knife? Maybe that’s just me, but a book that leaves a reader quivering for more is not doing so because of the mass amount of description. I couldn’t tell you what Bella’s room looked like, but I can tell you there was a vampire hanging out in there.

This can not end well – A storyline that appears to have a definitive ending, one that will crush your soul, but the writer gives you the tiniest inkling of hope--will pull you to the end. You may be reading it while peering through your fingers, but you are reading forward. I give it up to Stephanie Meyer on this one for sure. Breaking Dawn! Hello! ‘Nuff said.

Make ‘em laugh – A book that is just fun to read will make a reader cling to it, and heck, even come back for more. It’s not the same Zombie response of, “Must finish book, have to finish book, Boooook.” But the pages flick by just the same. You know the saying – time flies when you are having fun – well so do the chapters. Bridget Jones Diary was one of the first books that did this to me. I hoped things would work out for her, but laughing out loud alone in the dark is why I could not put that book down.

This list is not complete, but I think it’s a good start. So you tell me ...

What are some other things that glue you to the writing? Do you use any of these page turning techniques in your writing? What’s a book that grabbed you and wouldn’t let you go?

Sleepless in Atlanta

I apologize in advance. This is much more of a stream of consciousness than what I normally write, but it’s kind of how I feel today. So, I’m just going to go with it.

One of the huge downsides to how my day is structured is that I don’t sit down to write until late at night. I work 8 to 4, come home make dinner or at least help, play with the kiddos until bedtime, tuck them back in a second time, and then tie them to their beds the third. (Kidding. No children were harmed in the making of this book.) With all of that, my house doesn’t get quiet until a little after nine o’clock. This is when I crack open the laptop and sit down and try to let my brain focus on the task at hand.

What normally ends up happening is I play on the internet reading other writer’s or agent’s blogs because my own personal well is dry. Then about thirty minutes later I turn to my projects trying to pick up where I left off from the night before. I look up and the clock has magically hit midnight. For fear of turning into a pumpkin, I shut it down and try to make myself go to sleep. Hey, I relate to Cinderella. I don’t want a prince or a castle or anything. Just the singing, dancing mice to do my dishes and laundry. Wait, I think I had a point that I was getting to. Umm… right. Trying to go to sleep.

Completely wound up because I don’t write slow moving, lullaby type stories, I lay in the dark trying to force my eyelids to stay shut. Within five minutes, they pop open like a jack-in-the-box. I think there should really be another character in the fight scene. I need someone driving the car later for the rest of the scene to really work. Reach over write it down in my handy-dandy notebook and roll over. A few more minutes pass…Oh my god! I have it. The key story line in the next book. No need for notebook. I won’t forget that one. Notice the OMG. Ok. Enough work tonight. Seriously, go to sleep!

And so it continues. Last night alone, I came up with the character concept complete with name for a book idea which is a complete departure from my current project, the outline for the follow up to Iron Obsession (oooo, and it’s juicy), and a short story concept to submit to the Scratch contest. I didn’t fall asleep until after 3 am. Which is still a great Matchbox 20 song. I’m just sayin. I’m not complaining, because the ideas are coming. I won’t be so selfish as to say – not now, it’s not convenient for me. I just find it humorous the way the brain works.

Thank heavens I have found Turkish coffee. If that stuff doesn’t wake you up, you have no business on your feet.