Go to Sleep.
the solution will appear in the morning
Sleep solves most of my problems most of the time1 - and that includes my fiction.
Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (which also gives a persuasive case against using adverbs) talks about “the creatures upstairs” working all night as one lies down to slumber. That’s why when we wake up, we so often know what the next step is.
I begin to picture neurons in the brain; what they look like - and how exactly do they work? How do they keep working when I’m subconscious? How do we keep thinking when we’re not even aware we’re thinking? It’s such a mystery. It’s so amazing.
I’ve learned that at 2 p.m., when I’m feeling absolutely DONE, that lying down for 20 minutes will get me through the rest of the afternoon. The brain needs rest to be creative.
The mind keeps working even when I’m sleeping (is that why I’m so tired when I wake up? :)
This is a little reminder that rest is good. It makes us more productive and more creative (and the daytime hours so much more pleasurable). This year I’ve been trying to climb into bed a little earlier. It works wonders.
A book I want to read: Why We Sleep. I suspect it’s doing more than improving my fiction.
Have you ever had the solution miraculously appear after sleep? Tell me your stories!
Amy 💕
the last part:
Reading: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. The perfect Bildungsroman2 novel!
Submitted: the second packet for my MFA program (HALLELUJAH!!!) Now I get to start my third….
Writing: a McNifficents chapter book; I laughed a lot, always a good sign
Traveling: to Montreal this morning!
read with me:
The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair is part-mystery, part understanding of the human heart 💖
Ten Thousand Tries is Golden’s quest to save his dad and the soccer team ⚽
The McNifficents is one summer with six rambunctious kids and their miniature-schnauzer nanny 🐕 New Hampshire’s 2024 Great Reads for Kids selection!
I’ve learned this in my marriage, as well. No deep discussion of finances (or anything else) ends well after 9 p.m. Nope. Go to sleep.
Bildungsroman: a “coming-of-age” novel. A new word I learned this week!
“Have you ever had the solution miraculously appear after sleep?”
Yes! My brother brought home a TV from Germany (he was stationed there while in the military), and strangely the TV was programmed in a way that the audio was in German. No one could figure out how to reprogram the TV. That night I had a vivid and specific dream about how to reprogram the TV. The next morning I followed the steps from the dream, and they worked! The audio was set to English. This was in the early 80’s by the way, when we had analog TV’s.
I feel like I need more sleep now than I used to and have become a devotee of the power nap! Glad to know I have company!