Story Keeps You Awake

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Does anyone else have this? Whenever I'm emotionally immersed in my story, it keeps me awake all night thinking. And when I'm finally close to sleep, I'll have some great idea about a plot detail and immediately I need to turn on the light and write it down so I don't forget it.

I once didn't write it down and the next morning I couldn't remember it. Luckily, three days later the same idea occured to me again. I would have hated it if were gone forever.

In a way, I guess this weak form of insomnia is actually good. It keeps me writing until five in the morning because actually writing is better than trying to sleep and failing..
 

hillaryjacques

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Plot options keep me awake. I write at night and then drag myself to bed, where I'll suddenly find myself wide awake, contemplating or walking through different potential "next" scenes. So, yeah, I know just what you're talking about.
 

leahzero

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Oh god yes. This happened to me constantly while working on my WIP the past half-year, especially toward the end when approaching climactic scenes. I'd replay scenes in my head and imagine new ones. I've got a Moleskine full of chickenscratch scrawled in the dark while trying not to wake my boyfriend.
 

LJD

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There were a few weeks in September when this was happening to me regularly. Sometimes it would prevent me from falling asleep, but usually what would happen was I'd wake up in the middle of the night and be unable to fall back to sleep b/c I was thinking about my book.
 

dawinsor

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It happens to me all the time. Supposedly we're at our most creative when our brains are producing alpha waves, and they do that in the state between waking and sleeping. That's sure when I get most of my best ideas. Then or in the shower.
 

Mr Flibble

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It happens to me all the time. Supposedly we're at our most creative when our brains are producing alpha waves, and they do that in the state between waking and sleeping. That's sure when I get most of my best ideas. Then or in the shower.


Anywhere I can't write it down. Guaranteed.
 

DancingMaenid

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I'm a little bit the opposite for the most part. For years, now, I've thought about the characters and stories I'm working on before going to sleep and right after I wake up, and I generally find it relaxing. But then, I don't focus on trying to work things out or plot, either. I just let my imagination goes where it wants to go.

But occasionally I've gotten too wrapped up in it to a point where I couldn't go to sleep, yes. I usually play out scenes in my head and every now then it's hard for me to turn one off.
 

Sage

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This used to happen to me all the time, but for the past two years, I've been able to sleep a lot better than I used to. The downside is that the exciting plot figuring out that I used to do in bed doesn't happen anymore.
 

Phaeal

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I get into this bloody-minded singleness of purpose toward the end of a work. To demonstrate the strength of this state of mind:

Once I was pounding through the last pages of a novel when a frickin' huge centipede ran over my desk. Instead of my usual routine of screaming and running, I merely batted it aside and kept typing.

Now THAT's focus!

:D
 
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I get my best ideas for plot resolutions when I'm doing the dishes.

Elbows deep in suds and kitchen-grease and I can't, as IRU said, write it down.

It must be something to do with mindless tasks freeing up your subconscious to go to town on your WIP. Then all of a sudden, BAM. It pops into your conscious mind, and you're raring to get back to work.
 
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I get my best ideas during my naps. I dream about them and when I finish my nap I will go to the computer and write that idea on a sticky note or on a One-Note Notebook, and then I open a new Notepad document and start typing. When I get to that idea in particular, I expand it into complete scenes. I love it...


But my story doesn't keep me awake, fortunately. And since ideas come to me while I'm napping I can always write 'em down as soon as I wake up.
 

S.J.

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I get my best ideas for plot resolutions when I'm doing the dishes.

My parents are perplexed as to why I ALWAYS offer to do the dishes... this is why.

Writing rarely keeps me awake, but sometimes I get an idea JUST as I'm drifting off. Then I spend five minutes torn between turning the light on or rolling over and ignoring it. It's a push-and-pull between "I'll never get this idea again!" and "I should stop being neurotic and stay comfy". :tongue
 

hillaryjacques

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I get my best ideas for plot resolutions when I'm doing the dishes.

Elbows deep in suds and kitchen-grease and I can't, as IRU said, write it down.

It must be something to do with mindless tasks freeing up your subconscious to go to town on your WIP. Then all of a sudden, BAM. It pops into your conscious mind, and you're raring to get back to work.

My parents are perplexed as to why I ALWAYS offer to do the dishes... this is why.

:tongue

This is so true! My husband keeps telling me we have a dishwasher, and I respond that I have a sticky plot problem!
 

Brenda Hill

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Oh yes, it happens to me. I've tried keeping pen & paper next to my bed, thinking I'd simply jot the basics of my idea and go right back to sleep. Only problem was, I'd have to turn on the lights to see to write and soon I'd be too awake to sleep, yet too groggy to work. Next I tried a mini tape recorder, but half-asleep in the dark, I'd punch the wrong button, and in complete frustration, have to turn on the light to fix it.

Now when I have those brilliant ideas, I'm torn between jotting them down and trying to burn them into my brain so I'll remember in the morning. Of course I seldom do.
 

Tepelus

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My ideas come to me while at work. I'm a housekeeper, so all I do all day while making beds and scrubbing toilets is daydream about my novel, and I can't stop to write the stuff down, or else I'd never get my work done. And I'd get into big trouble.
 

MissMacchiato

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I don't get kept awake, but I do take audio recordings of ideas as I'm dropping off to sleep, since that's when all the ways to get myself out of plot corners seem to crop up!
 

Jax3683

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My stories keep me awake while I'm driving.



.

I could not agree with this more.

I drove a truck, over the road, for 3 years. My driving shift was 3am - Noon, and I often thought of plots, characters, etc while driving.

Now, after a year of being a Stay at Home Mommy? I don't drive much, but I can tell you that today while I took a 10 hour drive home from visiting Grandma and Grandpa with my toddler? The only way I made the drive (and stayed sane) was that I escaped into my characters. I got home and couldn't wait to put my 2 year old to bed so I could write down everything I'd thought up while driving.
 
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