Monday, August 18, 2008

Writing Mama Dilemma


It’s 10:30 p.m., and inspiration hits. Stories flow into my head, and I can see and hear how they are to be written. The dilemma: do I write when inspired, or do I go to sleep in an attempt to get eight hours like I’d promised myself I would try for one week. Yesterday I went to bed early and my day was definitely better because of it. My two Energizer bunny sons do not yet have snooze buttons, at least that I’ve been able to find.

I’ll choose sleep this time. Maybe I can train myself to be inspired during the day when I’m at home, ready to write.

(1 hour later…)

Scratch that. I tried to just write a few notes to remember what had inspired me, and an hour later I’m finishing up. Writing won out this time. I’m happy with what I wrote. It’s about my not-so-smooth (forgive the pun) introductions to love and sex. No more about that, gotta wait for my book for those words.

Or one and a half margaritas and a designated driver.


(Photo by Mats.)

2 comments:

Cathy Burke said...

I know!! I wish I had a tape recorder in my head. I will just be drifting off and think of the perfect phrase, or a funny story or an idea to explore. Sometimes I am putting a kid to bed and I want to jump up and write a complete essay! Of course I can't because then I would need to start from square one in the marathon bedtime routine. By the time I can I can't even remember what I thought was so interesting in the first place!

While I love my laptop I find that always having a piece of paper and (working!!) pen nearby is enough. I also favor index cards to keep things more organized.

Now if I just had a pause button for my kids I could write whenever I was inspired.

Kristy Lund said...

Hi Cathy,

I had that exact thing happen last night when I was putting my son to bed. And I did run out and get a notecard! But he was proud of what he said, so I couldn't bring the notecard out of the room. He wanted it taped to his bed...