Nocturnal Musings

I woke up at 4:13 this morning, thinking of all the things I wanted to add to my novel. I wrote them down in the notebook most writers keep beside their bed to record those random nocturnal flashes of brilliance that if not immediately captured, disappear into the ether, never to be seen or heard from again.

No problem, I thought, at that ungodly hour of the morning that those of us who are aging see more and more of as time goes on; I’ll write all this down and then use part of it for my blog and – ooh – this if the perfect transition for that one really rough part of my novel, “School of Hard Rocks.”

I pushed aside the cat: Sebastian thinks he has to do whatever it is I’m doing. I faithfully scribbled down my thoughts as fast as I could and got down on paper each and every one of those 4:13am beautiful, wonderful, brilliant, totally original and inspired thoughts.

I promptly rolled over and went back to sleep, snuggled securely in the afterglow of writer’s self-righteousness. I awoke at 5:28 and was so excited to get all the ‘good stuff’ from the ungodly hour previously mentioned. I decided to go ahead and shower, get dressed for work – all that prosaic mess that gets in a writer’s way sometimes. I did all that and then fed the cat. Finally, I’m ready brain-wise to sit AIC (author J.D. Rhoades told us at an all day writer’s seminar that his secret to success was simple: Ass in Chair). My coffee is at hand, it’s quiet, I’m dressed and ready to go should I get involved in my writing as I tend to do and once again, lose track of time. Finally, the moment is mine. I look down at my notes, my OMG-I’m-absolutely-f***ing-brilliant notes from the night before…and I can’t read them. That’s right, dear reader, I can make neither heads nor tails of the foreign language on the paper right in front of me. I quickly grab my strongest pair of drug-store reading glasses and take another look. Absolutely no difference.

The gibberish on the paper could have been the writings from the aliens some people claim visit them in the night. Shoot - for all I know, it could have been Sabastian the cat channeling my subconscious thoughts and auto-writing for me. The lines on the page went on an uphill slant from left to right – waaaaaay up hill. I had whole lines crossed out and arrows and circles here and there. My writing had no real ups and downs or curli-cues; it was more akin to the almost flat line on that funky machine next to the dying patient’s bed on a really bad soap opera. All that creativity! All that good verbiage! All those wonderful words that not only connect my novel but get me so much closer to my 50,000 goal for NaNo. Illegible! Nothing to salvage but the thought of what should have been.

But, that's not all, dear readers. Oh no, not by a long shot. To add insult to injury…down at the bottom of the page, cramped into a 1x1 inch square, with several heavy lines repeatedly drawn in a box shape, were the only clearly written words…Make sure you use this!!!!


And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. ~Sylvia Plath