Wednesday, June 2, 2010

sleepiness when attempting something I care about...

I just finished the manuscript. I wrote a few questions and just got a general feel for it. I like it a lot AND there are a pile of wandering plot lines that need to be followed or wound up and put away. I think and this is the best part - I think there is a good novel in there. It is so hard not to get sleepy at this point. Or that's what I find and I've been here before with my other two finished books and lots with plays. Where I just feel overwhelmingly like sleeping. I have slept today while reading. Oh, I realize that isn't a good thing to say - 'man oh man - this novel doesn't even keep its author awake' but it isn't that. It is the potential and how I just want to run away and this is when, if I were on that marathon, I would say to myself 'whose to know? nobody cares if you finish this or not. go have a great big Guiness. Lots and lots of people don't do marathons - they'll think it's cool you even tried.'



here's where I went after the Dublin marathon - to the Dingle Peninsula
isn't it so grand?!


But, my darling sticks, my favourite carrots - I will not go to sleep! Actually I will - right after I post this but you know what I mean. I will get to the heart of this and tease out all those lines and lines of plot and decide if they hold the thing together or need to be jettisoned. OK - enough of this, I'm punch-drunk - my metaphors are even more out of line than they are usually. eeek.
goodnight...

oh...and I just had a thought. When we kids were little, my dad used to read us books everynight. For awhile we insisted on The Bobbsey Twins and one night he got so fed up with fatuous twaddle that he flung the twins and all their goo across the room. Then he invented a series of stories based on a little girl called Sunbeam. Whenever things got too exciting in her life she'd fall asleep which would lead to even more excitement and adventures. So perhaps this is my father's fault? Huh, Dad, huh?

13 comments:

Jemi Fraser said...

Yup - sounds like you can most definitely blame dear old Dad. :)

I loved the Bobbsey Twins, until I moved on to Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys.

Tricia J. O'Brien said...

Ah, the cliffs of Ireland are grand indeed. There are some around Sligo I'm mad about. And a big Guinness sounds might tempting about now.
But I think I know of what you speak, sleepiness and all. Sometimes, I feel the same. I never knew until I tried to write a novel how long a journey it is.
Your Dad's storytelling is brilliant!

Cruella Collett said...

Congratulations! I guess I can understand what you mean about "just trying" for the marathon. As someone who has never even finished a first draft of a novel that is my ultimate goal, and it is easy to forget that a first draft is not a finished product but really just the beginning. I probably will end up "falling asleep" once this draft is done, though, mainly because there are other committments and happenings in my life that I can't put on hold right now. However, since my current novel always was a project I just needed to get out of the way of greater things, I think it is okay to let it be the one that will go into the forgotten desk drawer, and it is okay that it will be the project proving to myself that I am ready for running the marathon rather than being the actual race. For when I am doing the actual marathon, though, I will try to keep your words in mind :)

Oh, and my dad used to tell me made-up bedtime stories too. It is amazing how he managed to get me so enthusiastic about a mouse that supposedly lived in our shed... (I even had a little figurine of this "mouse", though the figurine was actually a hedgehog... I was three, okay!)

Ann said...

I know that sleepiness feeling. Have been dealing with it myself. You use all your energy and keep going...acting like the energizer Bunny. Batteries need to be recharged. Sleep then you can come back to it fresh.

Of course it is the Da's fault!

Jan Morrison said...

Jemi- I went on to Trixie Belden - I still feel a thrill when I hear a bobwhite.
Tricia - ah good, someone has felt that lassitude when approaching a massive rewrite. yay!
CC - yep, I have a first in the drawer. I may take it out and polish it up but not yet. It is largely set in Ireland so I feel a pang when I see photos of the place.
Hi Ann - yes. sleep and then back at it. that is my mantra.

Elizabeth Spann Craig said...

I get sleepy when writing, too! I blame it on my pets, which sleep all day while I write. Hope it's not my plot!

I...um...actually liked the Bobbsey Twins' goo. :) That's the kind of kid I was! Sad...

But I loved Trixie. She and Honey's friendship was fun, but I was really interested in her boyfriend, Jim. :)

Hart Johnson said...

The thought of editing makes me tired... but maybe that's not quite the same thing. I DO get the marathon metaphor though--the pack has broken apart and for a good long time you must run in solitude... the cameras are up by the winners, and there is little to help you keep the momentum. It sounds though, like you have a good plan. And unlike a REAL marathon, you actually can HAVE a Guiness and THEN keep going.

Cliffs are GORGEOUS. (My daughter used to make me make up stories, though mostly it was because she wanted to be the star)

Jan Morrison said...

Hi Elizabeth - oh believe me - we loved the Bobbsey Twins! Especially when they went to the country and also I still remember they had a cake with little prizes in them that all meant something - a thimble I remember. I think they'd be like the markers for Monopoly and were to tell your fortune. Thimble= old maid - boo hoo! And yes - first of all a girl named Honey was fantastic and Jim has remained my fave boy name.
Tartlett - oh dear - I still can't have a damn Guiness cuz I'm back on the no-fun allowed diet. But I will go off now and then probably with a gin though...yes, isn't that a treat - the landscape in that part of Ireland was fantastic. I really really want to live there but somehow Ron won't pack up and move to a little croft in the country of Ireland to raise sheep and write dark poetry. Why why oh why I ask myself?

Jane Kennedy Sutton said...

Congratulations on finishing the manuscript! You deserve a snooze. I don’t care how great a book I might be reading when my body says it’s time to fall asleep, there’s no way I can not obey!

Elspeth Futcher said...

I don't suffer from the falling asleep problem, I deal with 'will this ever end' issues. There are days when I feel I'm so close I can touch with my fingers and then there are others where it seems light years away. I need a gumption pill.

Jan Morrison said...

Oh, I definitely deserve a snooze but this sleepiness is not from that! It is just the part of me that doesn't want to enter into the next phase - sort of like when you're cleaning a child's room and there are fifty thousand bits of stuff - lego, little animals, precious drawings, scissors, crayons, dollies, plastic thingamajigs etc...and you just go mad thinking that you will never be able to make order and you lie down on the child's bed just for a moment and wake up later to your husband calling "Honey, where are you honey?". Yep, kind of like that.
Elspeth - yes! a gumption pill distilled from those ladies of yore - a little get-up-and-go, a little true grit, a touch of stick-to-it, and a splash of grim determination. Voila - a gumption pill. Hey what a fun idea - do you want to go into business. We can make them of anything and make fantastic stories of what they're made of on the extremely quaint and hilarious tags we'll create! I'm doing it - are ya in? (notice the distraction device of NEW BIZ rearing its head - almost as compelling as STOVE NEEDS CLEANING NOW! ;)

Elspeth Futcher said...

Jan; I'm SO in. What fun. I vote for a pill with plenty of pizzazz, a touch of spunk and and a dash of daring-do.

Jan Morrison said...

Yeehaw. I'll start designing labels now (for carrot reasons only - in my little tiny breaks) I see them as gorgeous old fashioned jars with those tops that hold on with a wire and the label could either be pasted on or a hanging down one made of oak tag. We should have several different types - for writers, artists, layabouts and so on. Or to start a writers' series - beginning the process, revision, editing, dealing with the public etc!!! We should have a funky name for the company - Elspeth & Jan's Perfectly Proper Pills! or better yet - Gutsy Gals Galvanizing Gumption Pills! The pills themselves can be made of sugar or to not have to worry about that we could fill each jar with different coloured jelly beans. OH I THING WE're on to something here.