Some weeks, I get way too much REM sleep and way too little deep sleep. Dreams blend one into the next all night long, and I wake up tired in the morning. This is one of those weeks. Let’s talk about writing while sleepy.
Stephen King said, “Writing is refined thinking.” When you’re not thinking clearly, writing is exceedingly difficult. I don’t know about you, but, when I’m sleepy, I feel like I have clouds in my brain, like there’s a barrier between me and the information I need. My train of thought flies off the rails or gets stuck in a loop.
The tips from Writing with a Busy Schedule can help you push past the brain clouds and squeeze the most out of your moments of clarity. Remember to start easy, write the first word, and get your minute’s worth. In this post, I’m going to focus on gathering and directing your scattered thoughts.
1. Pause and Plan
It’s tempting to open your document, scroll to the bottom, and start thinking about the next word to write. You can get away with that when your mind is clear enough to manage multiple considerations at once. You can’t do that when you’re sleepy. Don’t start with words. Start with ideas. Ask yourself what information needs to be conveyed in the next paragraph or two. Think it through; better yet, write it down. Starting with ideas gives you a simple outline to organize your thoughts around. After you write a couple of sentences, you might have to pause and plan again. Taking the time to plan saves you time and frustration: it frees up your limited brain power to write.
2. A Current in the Sea
Don’t be frustrated when you get distracted or when your thoughts get muddled. That’s going to happen. You can control only a current in the stormy sea that is your sleepy mind. Hold on to that little current. When you’re tossed one way or another, swim right back to it. You have to accept that much of your brain power is working against you and focus on the fraction you can use. Break down difficult scenes and sentences into manageable steps. If you take one baby step after the next, you’ll find that your steps gradually get bigger and faster. More and more of the sea starts to move with the current.
3. Wear One Hat
Either put words on the page or adjust the words that are already there. Pick one. If you try to do both when you don’t have the brain power, you’ll end up doing none. If you’re putting words on the page don’t place any extra pressure on yourself. Don’t worry about grammar, musicality, sentence variety, or word choice. If you’re adjusting the words on the page, take your time and tackle the tedious tasks: researching facts you’re not sure about, looking up better words, and proofreading your work. It has to be done; you might as well do it when you can’t do anything else.
Writing when you’re sleepy is hard—really hard—but it’s not impossible. If you make a plan and accept your limitations, you can make great progress with meager brain power.
