Thefireflies
Virgin
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2012
- Posts
- 235
It’s happening again. The clock approaches 10 pm, everyone’s mostly in bed, and I could go to sleep too. I should go to sleep. Sleep is important. But I’m driven by another need, because there’s others counting on me to give them life, even if it's brief. Turning my computer on, I sit and consider the time.
Okay, I’ll write till 11:30, then call it quits…
Yeah, right, we know the score. But get cracking, because time ain’t stopping for no one. I open the file, find the relevant document, then start reading to get my bearings…
The dogs heard Bridget pull into our driveway before I did, their heads rising from the rug and tails wagging. Now when I look up from my tablet, she walks towards me like a warrior queen, lips pursed tight, eyes glaring through her glasses… *
Ah, yes, okay, she’s pissed off with him for letting her down, and he knows he’s in the shit. I remember. Right, change this word, change that sentence…swap the order of a paragraph, nope, the first version was better, oh, I should add the notes I’d mentally made earlier in the day when my thought wandered to their world…right, time to continue writing their story…
Tippety, tappity, type, type, type…
Bam, it’s 11:30 pm. Shit, where’d the time go? Better get to bed. Sleep is required for real life and real life’s coming at me thick and fast when I wake in the morning. The page stares at me, bright on my screen in my dim office, and I rub my eyes. But I can’t leave my two main characters mid conversation, they have to resolve their issue, and I have to get these ideas down too. I type on.
Oops, look it's 1 am. Where’d the fucking time go? What happened to 12 midnight? Right, enough’s enough, this is ridiculous. Just finish typing a few rough notes on how to proceed…done.
Okay, I have to go. Farewell my friends, I will think of you and your journey and hope to get back to you…tonight actually, same time, same place.
I save the document, including a back-up on the external drive, taking extra care not to accidently delete the file in my sleepy state, something I’ve almost done once before. Finally it’s time to shut my computer down.
I know I’ll be tired when I wake in a few hours. I’m also well aware I’d put off starting a new story partly for this very reason, because the writing bug bites like an addictive drug, where once started, a little writing is never enough. Once the seed of a story germinates onto the page, I feel the need to write more and more and see it through to the end. Worse case, the story withers and dies, but best case the process can be better than reading a page turner novel or very good LitE story, or binge watching an excellent TV series, because it’s up to me to create the world and what happens next.
And this is the problem, because even If I have a rough idea of what happens next, I want to see it unfold! Even if I don’t publish, even if it does eventually wither. However, when a story really gets going I want to see it thrive, but it’s not going to happen until around 10 pm. For now my head hits the pillow, and after being held at bay for several hours, my sleep comes swiftly.
*Actual excerpt from my foolishly started recent draft I may or may not finish
Okay, I’ll write till 11:30, then call it quits…
Yeah, right, we know the score. But get cracking, because time ain’t stopping for no one. I open the file, find the relevant document, then start reading to get my bearings…
The dogs heard Bridget pull into our driveway before I did, their heads rising from the rug and tails wagging. Now when I look up from my tablet, she walks towards me like a warrior queen, lips pursed tight, eyes glaring through her glasses… *
Ah, yes, okay, she’s pissed off with him for letting her down, and he knows he’s in the shit. I remember. Right, change this word, change that sentence…swap the order of a paragraph, nope, the first version was better, oh, I should add the notes I’d mentally made earlier in the day when my thought wandered to their world…right, time to continue writing their story…
Tippety, tappity, type, type, type…
Bam, it’s 11:30 pm. Shit, where’d the time go? Better get to bed. Sleep is required for real life and real life’s coming at me thick and fast when I wake in the morning. The page stares at me, bright on my screen in my dim office, and I rub my eyes. But I can’t leave my two main characters mid conversation, they have to resolve their issue, and I have to get these ideas down too. I type on.
Oops, look it's 1 am. Where’d the fucking time go? What happened to 12 midnight? Right, enough’s enough, this is ridiculous. Just finish typing a few rough notes on how to proceed…done.
Okay, I have to go. Farewell my friends, I will think of you and your journey and hope to get back to you…tonight actually, same time, same place.
I save the document, including a back-up on the external drive, taking extra care not to accidently delete the file in my sleepy state, something I’ve almost done once before. Finally it’s time to shut my computer down.
I know I’ll be tired when I wake in a few hours. I’m also well aware I’d put off starting a new story partly for this very reason, because the writing bug bites like an addictive drug, where once started, a little writing is never enough. Once the seed of a story germinates onto the page, I feel the need to write more and more and see it through to the end. Worse case, the story withers and dies, but best case the process can be better than reading a page turner novel or very good LitE story, or binge watching an excellent TV series, because it’s up to me to create the world and what happens next.
And this is the problem, because even If I have a rough idea of what happens next, I want to see it unfold! Even if I don’t publish, even if it does eventually wither. However, when a story really gets going I want to see it thrive, but it’s not going to happen until around 10 pm. For now my head hits the pillow, and after being held at bay for several hours, my sleep comes swiftly.
*Actual excerpt from my foolishly started recent draft I may or may not finish
)
