Sleep Deprivation

I haven’t been sleeping well, so the irony wasn’t lost on me when I got to my morning research meeting and the topic was the distinction between sleep and anesthesia. Nor, I’m sure, was the irony lost on the presenter that a member of his audience could barely stay awake (and he’s a great presenter; I feel terrible!)

But my purpose here is to shamelessly use all of you as therapists, not to point out all the ways in which my life is ironic.

So why am I losing sleep?

The bad side of good? I have my suspicions that writing a book at warp speed isn’t so good on the brain rest front. I haven’t been dreaming about WRITING, but I have found myself sorting through things I typically have already sorted before bed. I am reading far less, and have much less veg time, so I think when I get in bed my noggin still has some processing to get done. I’m very curious whether other writers have experienced concordant inspiration and insomnia or whether I am grasping at straws…

The old ball and chain. I am married to a smoker. He tricked me, you see. He didn’t smoke in front of me until our third date when I already knew I liked him. He doesn’t smoke on me or our kids (or in our house)… just the garage. So though I hate the smell, I’ve kept the complaints limited for 20 years now… but when a person has smoked 25 years, he coughs… used to just be when he got up so he could make it most of the way to the garage before it got too obnoxious, but now, more often than not, he has stretches in the middle of the night where he coughs on and off for an hour or more. If you smoke, quit now, before you drive your spouse to homicide.

My achin' back. My back has been hurting. I'm pretty sure it's because I've gained some weight and I am poorly compensating... need to do something about this, but like everything else with me... the idea needs to simmer, or the chances of success are slim...

Rejections.

I’ve gotten my first two rejections this week for snail mailed queries… I still have eight out there, but can no longer maintain my illusion that the email was the culprit. For anybody wondering… it hurts just as much. I’m not ready to get back to querying at this point because I’m pretty sure it will ruin the writing mojo, and the writing mojo needs to stay, ideally until I finish the trilogy around Christmas *snort*. Seriously though—I think I can keep it up through book one with just a few stumbling blocks in that final action sequence, and if I kept it up at the current pace, it would be done in maybe three weeks. Nuts.

So that’s it in a nutshell… I wish it was slow enough I could just lay my head on my desk, but there is stuff to do….