Sleep

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub

~To Be Or Not To Be, Hamlet; Shakespear, 1602

I’ve been finding the past few days I’ve been getting to sleep a lot earlier than I used to.  Used to be I’d drag my butt to bed around midnight.  The past few nights that’s been around 10:30, which is fine, by that time it’s dark out and I’m tired.  I used to get tired and push it back, then finding my second wind and really screwing up my sleep schedule.  The worst was when I was much younger and would proudly attempt all nighters, especially when I had to work the next day.  I’ve tried that since, finding that I usually give up by the time 3 in the morning rolls around.  I’d like to note, I never try this when I have to work the next day.

But I’ve also noticed I feel a lot more refreshed in the morning.  An hour or two extra sleep really feels good, and I’m even able to get up at 5:30 in the morning.  I normally have my alarm set for that, and will wake up and hit snooze several times before finally getting up because I really need to use the facilities.

It’s also doing something else, and that’s helping me get some work done.  By work, I mean writing.  There’s other work that I do that I get done, but that’s the everyday mundane work that needs to be done, like dishes, laundry, vacuuming, cleaning windows, dusting and so on.  But it’s helping a bit with my writing.  I know, this whole thing I’ve discovered is contrary to some of the advice of published authors of the past.  An example is several suggest being shit faced drunk.  If I ever get that way, I can’t lift my hand, not even to think about writing.  I did it once, mind you.  I wrote about 5,000 words in one alcohol induced haze, then crashed into my bed at about 4 in the morning.  I awoke the next day to reread what I’d written, and in a hangover fog I thought it might be salvageable.  By the time the fog lifted and moved on, I realized there was no salvaging that train wreck of a word jumble.  One non coherent sentence flowing into an unrelated non coherent sentence.  That’s not to include how many spelling errors there were.

And I will say this now, no, I did not keep that jumbled mass of incoherent rambling.  It went to the dust bin rather quickly.  I mean dust bin quite literally, because I was typing it out on an old Underwood typewriter.  Ah, the good ol’ days.

So three things I can suggest if you sit down to write; get lots of sleep, eat a good meal before (or while) you write, and have a small recording device handy if you come up with an idea but area far away from pen and paper or computer.  Record your idea and transcribe later after you’ve had a nap from that plate of fettuccine Alfredo you just finished.