Wednesday, October 15, 2008

How Do I Turn This Thing Off?

I keep being hit by all these ideas at 2 AM in the morning, just after I've crawled into bed after doing whatever writing I can. My mind is on fire when I'm supposed to be drifting off to dreamland. I can feel the synapses crackling, exploding while the rest of the house sleeps: the perfect line of dialogue, the great title, the best characterization, the best edit, the reason the opening doesn't work...

I wish somebody would write something in one of these writer's magazines about how to switch off the creative impulse so you can get at least five hours sleep. As a parent, there's a kind of desperation that sets in as you lie on the pillow and watch the time tick away, cause you know your very precious alarm clock is going to be up at 8 AM ready and rearing to go.

Of course I shouldn't be writing at night. I should be getting up at 5 AM and writing for three hours before the babe wakes up. But waking up early to write has never worked for me. It takes a tractor to get me out of bed in the morning and I am the original night owl. What this means is that I generally have to wait for her to fall asleep before I write...so my work days start at 10:30 PM, after the usual decompression that consists of surfing the web and watching MSNBC.

So...anybody got any non-pharmaceutical ideas about how to fall asleep fast, other than the great advice below?

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