8 Rules For Writing in Bed
4. Turn on the light to get down your thoughts. I’ve often grabbed my clipboard and pen in the dark, cavalier and overconfident, brimming with creative bounty, and started writing like mad. In the morning, I look and the words, completely unintelligible, are splattered over the page like a drunken sonnet. 5. Sit up to write. An effort, I know. Sometimes, fatigue creeping back, I’ve compromised by reclining. I scribble like a demon and, sated, slide down again. Next day’s result: see #4.
At nine minutes to go, I always fall asleep at night on the latest action-adventure-intrigue TV show or movie. I never know how the ends got tied up, the hero(ine) got untied, or why the tie-dyed shirt gave the killer away. Then I stagger off to bed, murmuring excuses to my husband about having worked too hard.
But the moment I stretch into the expanse of the bed, groaning with pleasure at its snug comfort, something inexplicable happens. I’m wide awake—and worse, or better—my mind starts churning with ideas for the current writing project, revisions for two others, brand new ideas, and floating brilliant phrases for some still-unnamed piece. I’m as alert as a kid waiting for dawn and Disneyland. And sure I’ll remember everything tomorrow.
But I don’t. Slivers of ideas and mostly sad forgettings have taught me a few things. If you’ve had similar grog-to-awake experiences, sure it will all be fresh the next day, and then regret your hubris, here are eight rules I’ve learned to follow that may help you retain your brilliance.
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1. Don’t trust your mind to remember. As clear, sharp, and wonderful as your ideas are at night, and as convinced you are of your excellent memory, you’ll remember .01 to none tomorrow.
2. So, keep a scratch pad/notebook/cards/tape recorder/Ipad/phone voice memo app next to your bed within easy reach. I graduated recently from a pocket-size notebook to a full-size clipboard.
3. Keep pens/stylus in the same place.
4. Turn on the light to get down your thoughts. I’ve often grabbed my clipboard and pen in the dark, cavalier and overconfident, brimming with creative bounty, and started writing like mad. In the morning, I look and the words, completely unintelligible, are splattered over the page like a drunken sonnet.
5. Sit up to write. An effort, I know. Sometimes, fatigue creeping back, I’ve compromised by reclining. I scribble like a demon and, sated, slide down again. Next day’s result: see #4.
(Enjoying this article? Check out Noelle's previous guest posts for GLA: "What Selling Lemonade Can Teach Us About Writing" and "7 Things I've Learned So Far.")
6. Open your eyes to write. If you’re like me, your mind is a vast field, largely unexplored. With ideas rising up, your best move is to pay attention with your eyes closed to minimize distractions. But when I keep my eyes shut trying to catch the ideas on paper, even though I race like a pen on wheels, I get the same rueful result: see #4.
7. If you use a pen, make sure it has ink. Sometimes, after writing in the dark, in the harsh daylight I discover that the pen ran dry and only light grooves are visible on the paper. I could stab myself with the empty pen. Keep an auxiliary pencil at the ready.
8. When your male significant other bursts in with the crucial news that the Yankees/Red Sox/Titusville Sluggers just whacked the championship-winning homer, or your female S.O. screeches that the baby just spit up on her good shoes, signal firmly that you don’t want to hear it. You can deal with the fallout in the morning. A few days of silence or gas-filling boycott are small prices for all the precious ideas you’ve captured.
If your nodding and alert patterns are anything like mine, you’ll need these eight rules. When you follow them, you won’t have to keep trying to remember your marvelous thoughts. And the effort won’t keep you up and you won’t hate yourself in the morning with a blank mind. In the new day, you’ll actually be able to retrieve, read, and use what you obediently recorded writing in bed.
Author, editor, dissertation and writing coach, and spiritual counselor Noelle Sterne has published over 300 pieces in print and online venues, including Author Magazine, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Children’s Book Insider, Funds For Writers, Graduate Schools Magazine, GradShare, InnerSelf, Inspire Me Today, Pen & Prosper, Romance Writers Report, Textbook and Academic Authors Association, Transformation Magazine, Unity Magazine, Women in Higher Education, Women on Writing, Writer’s Digest, and The Writer. She has also published pieces in anthologies, has contributed several columns to writing publications, and has been a volunteer judge for Rate Your Story. With a Ph.D. from Columbia University, Noelle has for 30 years assisted doctoral candidates to complete their dissertations (finally). Based on her practice, her handbook addressing dissertation writers’ overlooked but very important nonacademic difficulties was published in September 2015 by Rowman & Littlefield Education. The title: Challenges in Writing Your Dissertation: Coping with the Emotional, Interpersonal, and Spiritual Struggles. In Noelle's previous book, Trust Your Life: Forgive Yourself and Go After Your Dreams (Unity Books, 2011), she draws examples from her academic consulting and other aspects of life to help readers release regrets, relabel their past, and reach their lifelong yearnings. Visit Noelle at her website: trustyourlifenow.com.
