Train of Thought, Train of Sleep: Glimpses of the Writing Life

Here’s how it works:

On a day not marked with a pressing deadline, I walk to Bongo Java to spend time with the muses.  Oh, I don’t really know any of them.  In fact, I avoid initiating unnecessary contact with anyone I’m secretly writing about. More on that tomorrow.

I sit down, eat, observe the muses, take notes on them. I walk, and think.  I go to the library and write a bit there.  Actually more than I do at Bongo.  Bongo nowadays is a notetaking pit stop to gather impressions.  I take it to another stage at the library: flesh out notes, lightly edit, put away for later.

The laptop does not and never will replace writing in my spiral notebook.  To completely relax, to get the pressure off, I escape into the internal rhythm and flow of cursive.  Yes, it takes time, but I accomplish more in the long run.  I do freewrite on the laptop sometimes, but rarely when the sun’s out. 

My problem is that my best work is done in the wee hours of the morning, but I am not very productive if I wake up late during the day.  I think ideally I’d go to bed at 5 p.m. and rise at 1 a.m.   Realistically, though, I need to be following the media.  I need to go out sometimes, writing project or no writing project.  (It does cut into my social life; I won’t lie about that.)

I need to walk every day.  I need to walk a lot to feel like myself, to get my creative juices flowing, and release those elusive endorphins.  My worst feeling in the world is being stuck on a transatlantic flight.  Hasn’t anyone thought of having a dedicated walking trail on those jumbo Airbuses?  I make a point of walking somewhere two miles away, because if I travel there on foot, I will have little choice but to walk back.  I have annoyed more and more friends who’ve passed me on the road, gone out of their way to change directions and pull up to greet me, only for me to decline a ride. 

I walk to think.  My mind runs a million miles a minute.  Now that I have a tape recorder, I try to take it with me everywhere so I can record my thoughts on the street…and at my bedside.  It’s the only way to catch an idea without my train of thought screeching to a halt.  It’s constantly out of batteries.

I like to write, I’m good at it, but it’s not easy having a writing job, writing when I don’t want to do it.  It’s actually bad that I work in my livingroom.  I like to lie on the couch.  It’s distracting.   I often switch gears and work on something of a much lower priority.  The entry you’re looking at right now is being written as I have two projects to turn around.  Nothing makes me long to work on my book more than a time-sensitive freelance assignment…or a temporary job that takes all my time.  I hope I continue to get plenty of freelance assignments. What can I say?

I do find it helpful to indulge the urge to work on something that’s not necessarily a priority.  If I worked in-house for someone, it would be an internal struggle.  The last thing I want to do is give an employer the impression that my priorities are out of whack.  But at home, when I have a choice, I write what I want to until I get sick of it. 

At night, when I can put away my obligations and write or blog about anything, I sit on the couch with a huge cushion sandwiched between my lap and my laptop. 

I try not to surf the Web during the day unless I cannot postpone researching something.

I need sleep.  That’s the one thing I need most.

When I go out of the country, it’s like a cell phone out of range.  I think it would help to have a place in another country that was familiar to me, yet far away from my regular life.  I find that I get a lot of writing done visiting my aunt in Cleveland.  The most frustrated I’ve ever been was learning en route to my uncle’s house in West Tennessee that I was going to babysit.  A writer cannot supervise children in a pool – even middle-school students – and get anything done. 

I pace a lot in my own house.  That’s the advantage of working from home. 

Early in the morning, I want to be somewhere.  I want to be somewhere at 9 o’clock.  The worst thing I can do is get up late.  What would my ideal schedule be?

1 am – wake

6:30 – walk somewhere

9:00 eat at Bongo

10:30 walk to library

11:30 arrive at library

2:30 walk home

5 p.m. go to bed

Visiting my sister and brother-in-law and their four kids, no writing got done, but I expect that.  With six people in the house, there’s always someone to talk to, and I take the opportunity. 

Unfortunately, nothing gets done on an airplane.  Freewriting, but suprisingly even that gets tiring.  I’ve learned to bring something to read but not count on getting any significant work done on a project.  Even trapped like a rat in economy class.  Plus, I want to look out the window.  Why else fly?

 Can you tell that I’m half-asleep right now?