Writing when I’d rather sleep

I absolutely love writing!  It’s like a drug for me and I get seriously happy and excited when everything is flowing and the writing is effortless.  However, there are some days when it feels more like a chore than the amazing gift it is.  On those days, it takes so much effort to talk myself into writing.  I recognize there will be days when I write half a book and days when I barely write one paragraph, but the days when I would rather sleep than write really annoy me.  

Having said that, the days when I’d rather sleep appear to have a hidden gift.  Days when I allow myself to stay in bed dozing, day dreaming, and being lazy are the days when my brain allows me to dream up new stories, plots, characters and amazing worlds.  For example, today was one of those days and I dreamed I spent the entire day walking up a completely irrational staircase that must have been several miles tall only to reach the top and discover I wanted to go back down.  The staircase turned into a slide and I kept sliding, sliding, and sliding (for what felt like 15 minutes) down this massive staircase.  Someone else was sliding with me and we talked about the most random things while waiting to reach the bottom.  But you couldn’t stop paying attention while sliding.  You had to keep an eye out for coming close to the ground so you could slow yourself down before crashing into a wall. No sooner had we reached the bottom than we decided we really wanted to be at the top again.  I think this is a great analogy for writing.  Some days we climb the staircase building a story word by word, paragraph by paragraph.  Then there are the fun days when we just scream through pages and pages.

I feel better about spending the day in bed after reading various articles which recommend daydreaming, indicating:

• daydreaming is a strong indicator of an active and well-equipped brain
• correlates with higher degrees of what is referred to as working memory. (Cognitive scientists define this type of memory as the brain’s ability to retain and recall information in the face of distractions.)
• increases creativity
• aids complex problem-solving

Every day has its gift.  B