What Keeps People Up at Night?

What keeps people up at night? Fears. Noises. Nothing in particular. Whether rational or laughable, strange things keep writers awake.

Everyone’s heard of writer’s block, where one cannot think of what to write about, or how to write it, but
what about the opposite end of the spectrum? It is a maddening condition I shall call writer’s burst, which causes normally rational people to stop everything and write, staying up at all hours of the night, frantically scrawling out ideas on anything that resembles paper! The driving theory behind this bizarre behavior is “if I don’t write it down NOW I’ll forget it!”

Symptoms may include sleepiness, yawning, bags under eyes, zoning out, hand cramps, and irritability. Sufferers may also have an attack during the day. So far, it has not been contagious or fatal. However, others are advised to give the bursting writer privacy, paper, and pencil.

Beethoven may have had a sight case of writer’s burst, which he treated by always carrying a notebook on his person. When Louisa May Alcott was working on a book, she would slave for fourteen hours a day, “…scarcely tasting food until her daily task was done,” according to Dr. H. Erichson, “Methods of Writers,” The Writer Magazine, June 1893.^[1] “When the idea was in her head, it flowed into words faster than she could write them down, and she seldom altered a line.” She would lay awake at night, mulling over plot details, but she would not draft anything until daylight. Apparently, Alcott had a superb memory, and was then able to recall and record her thoughts. Erichson claims “She had the wonderful power of carrying a dozen plots for months in her mind, thinking them over whenever she was in the mood, to be developed at the proper time.” Louisa also sought solitude when scribbling “…she shut herself up in a room, and emerged only when she could show a completed work.” Alcott was so full of inventiveness, when she severely strained her right hand from writing for countless hours, she trained herself to write with her left hand, so she would not have to stop, novelist Kelly O’Connor McNees attests.^[2]

So, if you cannot get some shut eye, why not grab a pen and paper and write for a while? Or, if fears and funny noises are keeping you awake, why not scratch out a satire of said maladies and share it with the rest of us at a decent hour.

Exploding with creativity is a strange problem to have, but not having any inspiration is significantly worse. Humans have been struggling with and overcoming both obstacles for centuries. Don’t lose sleep over it!

The author had a sudden brain storm come up, which was not on the radar, at around noon several days ago, giving impetus to this post. The first draft was dashed out on square, 5”x5” stationary, which had been placed by the phone for taking messages. The disorderly, penciled notes were placed, ironically, in a neat folder, where all Left and Write blog ideas are kept. The original words were then typed into a word document, edited, and from there posted on this blog.

Sources: 1. http://blog.writingspirit.com/2009/08/louisa-may-alcott-didnt-need-a-computer.html

2. http://www.us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/lost_summer_louisa_may_alcott.html