I have a full-time job. Forty-five hours a week, now, due to mandatory overtime, but they also allow more overtime if you want it (to help us stay ahead in this crazy economy, but don’t get me started on OT versus paying us enough for the regular 40 hours so that we don’t need to do OT). Thank goodness it’s a remote job, or I’d be beyond grumpy.

Because of this, I have only my off hours to write my fiction, and most of that is taken up by sleep, de-stressing after the shift ends, eating (and whatever prep/clean-up that comes with it), and the occasional social visit with friends. I know that in order to get my stories out there, I have to actually write them, which means I should be dedicating time everyday to getting something out of my brain (whether that’s a first draft, an outline, or just the wisp of a start of an idea). But at the same time, I also know that in order to ensure I am healthy, I need to take care of my body, my mind, and my home. But every day that I don’t write something in one of my countless stories (yeah, there’s so many in progress, I’d have to actually sit and count them up) I feel guilty for it.

If I haven’t written anything in a day, then I tend to start working it out in my mind when I lay down to sleep. It’s a habit I picked up when I was little before I realized what I was doing. I would lay in bed, staring at the wall or the ceiling, and imagine up some scenario that made me happy, and before I knew it, I was asleep. In high school, it was a lot of romances between me and whoever I was crushing on at the moment. In college, I would put on my headphones and go to sleep to my album of the moment, which was usually something I could picture grand cinematic moments to. (The Ever After soundtrack was a BIG favorite of mine, and will always be. That music SLAPS when it comes to dreaming up something amazing.) Now that I’m writing with the intent to publish, instead of just seeing the same three scenes in my head over and over, I pick a scene I need to write, or one I wasn’t satisfied with and need to rework, and actually think the words out, picking them carefully as I can. It actually helps me work through some of the words, visualize the scenes from different angles and different outcomes, and in most cases helps me fall asleep. But only if I’m just laying down at the end of the day. If I’ve woken up in the middle of the night, doing this actually ends up keeping me awake, somehow, as my brain gets fixated on it and won’t shut off then.

Oh, what a strange and fickle thing is the brain.

All this to say that sometimes, when my husband stays up late playing video games (or in this case, accidentally makes himself physically ill and chooses to sleep in the guest room), and I should probably be sleeping, I sit up and stare at my laptop in the hopes that the words come and fill the tiny screen, moving me one paragraph closer to hitting ‘upload’ on Amazon.

-K