My writer brain never turns off. I think about potential new book concepts or my current manuscripts or blog ideas while walking the dog, doing the dishes, cutting my toenails. (Too gross? Sorry.)
Basically, any time I’m not working or actively engaging with my family or friends, I’m thinking about writing. But the best are my post-midnight mind ramblings. I’ll wake up at 2 am, half asleep with some crazy thought or idea, and proceed to email to myself. A task made harder because I’m technically legally blind.
While I can get to 20/20 (barely) with my glasses (see picture below of eye distortion to understand how thick they are), I don’t grope around for those clunkers in the middle of the night so I can send myself an email.
Nope, I blindly grab my phone, which sits atop a teetering pile of books that once (or twice) has fallen on my head. After further blinding myself with the bright screen, I proceed to miraculously find the email icon, type in my own email address and write a message.
It’s shocking I don’t end up sending more weird night ramblings to my friend Kristy who for some reason always pops up in autocomplete when I type the letter “K”, even though we haven’t corresponded in years.
The next morning I wake to several messages marked from “me” and an onslaught of cryptic word puzzles to sort out.
Most of them have a subject line reading something like: Book. Ideaaaa. Or Blog Onxe (still trying to figure that one out.) Or Jasper Hardbottom. (A children’s picture book I sketched out at 3 am based on my friend’s daughter’s favorite toy.)
Admittedly, some of these gems perhaps were not ONLY middle of the night ramblings. They may have been augmented by a girls night out and a drink or two. But most were written fully sober…maybe I don’t want to admit that.
Here are some of my more ridiculous ones, with typos retained for your entertainment. [My commentary on my past nighttime brain bursts has been added in brackets and italics.]
#1 Boxing Myself In
Date/time written to myself: May 1, 1:30 AM
Email subject line: Book idea middle grade [Starts off OK. I spelled everything in the title correctly and it at least makes sense…Gets worse from here.]
Box you write a trait you don’t like about yourself and put it in the box. [Um, what?] Funny things happen. [Great! Funny things happen. Watch out Hemingway, at 1 am I am a genius.]
Take away self doubt or shyness etc.. Funny then bad. [Oh? Funny THEN bad. Yes, of course. Can’t be the other way around.]
Moral the traits you think are bad also have great qualities. [OK, the moral is nice. But the rest of it makes no sense! ]
#2 Breaking Writing Boundaries (and Windows)
Date/time written to myself: March 28, 12 AM
Email subject line: Story idea [Not winning any novelty awards on the email subject.]
Connected… Boy and girl. Do things and aren’t sure why. [Again with the vagaries!]
Inspiration story of me kissing sliding glass door. [Wait? When did I kiss a sliding glass door…Oh right there was that one time… But why would anyone find that inspirational?]
And Neal saying he broke windows because he knew he would one day love me. [Note: Neal is my husband so at least this seems inspired by our love story…but why do I drive him to vandalism?]
Connected this way. Both so strange things and don’t know why. Build ides around this. [It always breaks down at the end. And ides? Like the ides of March? Why am I building them? I think I need to just hit the delete button on this one for good!]
#3 With Brevity Comes Genius Stupidity
Date/time written to myself: February, 1 11:00 PM
Email subject line: New idea? [I think that subject line says it all, especially the question mark.]
The book writes you… [That’s it?? That’s you’re ‘new idea’ K.L.? Embarrassing. Your phone privileges should be revoked after 10 pm.]
#4 Stepping Out of Reality
Date/time written to myself: November 25 1:03 AM
Email subject line: Triple step [Not helpful at all. Surprised I even knew to flag this is a story idea…although that’s a loose interpretation based on the content of the email.]
They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Book about a woman who rediscover life by learning to swing dance. [I’m really not seeing how these two things fit together. Delete!]
#5 WAAAAAY Out There
Date/time written to myself: October 31 7:00 AM [Note: this means I didn’t sleep, which may account for what comes next.]
Email subject line: Book [Good one. I’m getting better at these subject lines!]
Take them with gourneys. Change mom to pediatric sirgeon [Apparently lack of sleep and punctuation/spelling are inversely related.]
When leaving for college moms hands shaking. She optics. They had to wake him up early from a coma using g a risky drug cocktail. It was fine but she wasn’t sure it would work she doesn’t like uncertainty. [Moral of the story: It’s totally fine to use a risky cocktail to wake your comatose kid and then send him off to college…?]
#6 Banned
Date/time written to myself: May 30 12:54 AM
Email subject line: Blog idea
Craziest banned books and the reasons they were banned. [This one makes sense!!! And I spelled everything right. Yay!! Finally!!]
#7 So Random
Date/time written to myself: May 9 12:30 AM
Email subject line: Idea to fix section
He has a conversation with her that explains stuff before he drinks her blood. [Mansplaining + blood drinking…I’m on a roll with this one.]
#8 My Favorite
Date/time written to myself: December 27 1:47 AM
Email subject line: Blig [It’s blog meets fig? or trig? or big?]
I don’t trust people who don’t read books. I just don’t. [Amen sister! Can I say that to myself? Starting off well…]
To me people who don’t read books don’t want to be challenged or open their minds. [All right, it’s getting a little preachy but it has potential.]
This is my belief. So what are the facts about reading? 8vam talking about facts, science and data. But I it’s prett6bvlear that it is necessary. Tjerrb8snnonlegimatebsc8encebti [ARG! Lost it. Stupid late night/no glasses and fumbling fingers. Oh well…]
And, that ends the embarrassing myself portion of this blog. 🙂 Have a great writing and reading Friday to all!
August 17, 2018 at 10:04 am
Clever glimpse behind the curtain of your brain’s ramblings and ideas for your ‘blig!’
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August 17, 2018 at 10:26 am
Clever or crazy? I think it’s a fine line. 😉
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August 17, 2018 at 10:27 am
You don’t have to come down on either side. Let’s just go with creative, which encompasses both! 😂
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August 17, 2018 at 2:53 pm
That’s a fun look at your late night notes. Mine are all hand-written, and my late night/early morning handwriting is BAD, so I can’t even make this much sense out of most of my “genius thoughts”. It doesn’t help that I don’t turn on the light so that I don’t wake up my husband…
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August 20, 2018 at 10:56 am
I used to do that too! On sticky notes. And then I’d write on top of the other notes, which made it all the more confusing. My solution was the email. Although that didn’t help much. My husband bought me this recording device where it’s a thumb drive and you can speak into it and then plug it into your computer and it plays back. But then I’d be whispering all night…not sure if that’s better or worse than turning on a light! 😉
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August 20, 2018 at 11:56 am
LOL, whispering into a thumb drive might be enough to cause nightmares… depends on how deeply he sleeps!
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August 20, 2018 at 12:17 pm
Now I want to try it! sounds like it could be an amusing experiment!
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August 20, 2018 at 2:23 pm
Get him started on keeping a dream journal first, so you can compare. You know. For science. 😉
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August 20, 2018 at 8:21 pm
Good idea!
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August 17, 2018 at 5:21 pm
I always enjoy a peak into a writers brain and number 3 “the book writes you” sounds like it could be a great sci-fi in the making. Or possibly horror. 🙂
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August 20, 2018 at 10:56 am
Ha, yes, if only I’d provided myself with a bit more detail. 😉
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