Sometimes my brain gets so cluttered with stuff I have trouble setting it aside for more than a couple of hours. Which is fine until I go to bed and try to sleep.
At two o'clock in the morning, though, it's not quite so peachy. Couple that with a really good dinner of which I ate more than I should have and I end up with a sleepless night.
Guess what! I'm at the tail end of one and I'm not pleased. I'm not displeased, just not pleased. Mildly bothered and mostly resigned are probably the best descriptions.
It's Monday. I have to go to work and pay attention. It'll be fine for the next few hours, but I know that by about two o'clock this afternoon my tail is gonna be draggin' and I'll probably want to go straight to sleep when I get home at six. Which, if I could follow my inclination, would then screw up my sleep patterns for the rest of the week. However, I have family commitments and obligations, so I'll stay up until my normal bedtime of about nine-thirty, fighting the urge to just go to sleep on the sofa.
It's just that there's just stuff going on. Big stuff, little stuff, all together too much stuff. There's work stuff, home stuff, life stuff - too much in everything and it's all piled in the middle of my life-room.
Compelled to dig through it and try to understand the whys, the implications - what does this mean to me? - and all the rest, my brain wouldn't quit.
Couple that with a really excellent dinner, a tad too much of everything and an unpleasant over-full feeling that's still with me this morning (yes, I did eat too much). Recipe for a sleepless night.
Change is hard. We've just had a major change at work at the same time that my position is undergoing a change.
The first wasn't that much of a surprise to me. I didn't see it coming, but when it came I wasn't terribly surprised and I recognized the reasons for it.
The second is exciting, but it's also confusing. The needs and expectations that I see are completely different from what the people directing my effort seem to see, and I don't know if I'm misunderstanding or if they're not seeing the same thing I am. It'll take a conversation, a clarification, and all will be right with the world. It's just that unsettling feeling of being adrift on a raft that's tipping around while I try to balance, to find that sweet middle spot.
Then there's the writing.
I get bored easily. When I spend too much time doing the same thing I get really bored, so when I spend a lot of time on one story or book it gets stale and I don't want to do it anymore. At least for a time.
That doesn't mean I won't finish it (and I don't believe anything a writer creates is ever really finished). It just means that once I start editing I'm never satisfied. Even when I think I am satisfied, that it's as good as it's going to get and I put it on the shelf, my mind will still riffle the pages and think, 'what if I do that?'
That's where I am with 'Laurentina's Lessons'. I've already decided to change the title, after the book was "finished". Now I'm thinking of eliminating the first chapter and capturing that detail later in the story. But that creates problems of its own.
If I do change it, I'm the one who will notice. No one else will care.
If I don't change it, no one else will care but it will still (probably) bother me.
Is it crucial? No! Not at all. So why am I thinking of changing it? Because I can, mostly, but also because while it sets the story up, introduces the characters, their place and relative situations, it doesn't really do anything to get the story started.
I'm also a little concerned about the length. The first book that I wrote was, literally, nearly one million words. Not individual characters in the text. I am speaking of individual words.
I have learned, since then, the beauty of brevity. How to separate wheat - the important stuff in the tale - from chaff - the stuff that can be blown away with no one else noticing. I have also learned to balance my inherent wordiness with pithiness to relate my stories in fewer and better chosen words.
'Laurentina's Lessons' is about 62,000 words - about 13,000 words shorter than it 'should' be by the measuring sticks I've found relating to 'ideal' book lengths.
13,000 words is a lot of words. It takes a lot of effort to generate that many words and make them flow logically, to make sense within the framework of the story, and to add something interesting that doesn't detract from something else. So, if I remove the current chapter one, which is about 1,500 words, I am then faced with creating a meaningful, interesting hodgepodge of engaging story that's almost 15,000 words long. A challenge, and not necessarily a good one.
'Matters of Friendship' is back on the shelf for the moment and I've picked up on my personal favorite of my stories, one that's never seen the light of day. I'm enjoying working on it, applying what I've learned since I last touched it and seeing it take on another layer.
So, with all of this flowing and drifting is it any wonder I didn't sleep? Nope. I didn't think so.
Have a lovely day! Take a nap for me, if you can...
Best~
Philippa
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