The snoozing bear on the side of the tea box had lied and my insomnia mocked me for another night. I turned heavenward and lamented, “Why won’t she let me sleep?” but my whiney prayer only made it to the celestial stratum of the apartment above me and it returned no answer. Stomping back to my bed for the fifth time, after trying the couch, laying flat like DaVinci’s anatomical man on the floor, and then the couch again, I tried to hide from the truth by tucking my head under my pillow. "If I just pretend it’s not 2:33 in the morning, I can trick myself into only needing 4 hours of sleep.". An hour later, I updated my denial, “Ok, 3 hours of sleep.”
Throwing the pillow aside and flipping over, my thoughts paced- Fiction isn’t even my voice… I don’t know how to open her story… What will her name be?... Does she even need a name? …(I google names online) … Maybe being nameless will bring more insight to her character. Will I narrate her as another character or will she tell her story in first-person? But it won’t matter if I can’t hook ‘em with the intro. It has to be catchy…oh I know! “It was a dark and stormy…” wait, that’s been done.
In my mind I began to review the opening lines, character development, and voice tenses of books I’d read. I admired and cursed the talent of their authors. My insomnia, my clock and now They all mocked me. Imaginary Amy Tan laughed at me and bragged she never had a sleepless night over a story. Agatha Christie pointed and laughed from my Kindle screen saver, “I never had to start the same story over and over. Boy you suck!”. Stephen King just stared at me in shame, shaking his head until he couldn’t even bear to look at me. “Yes I know! You were all born fantastic writers”, I pouted back and threw the pillow over my head again.
Moments later I spring from my bed and plop in front of my laptop. Even if this no-named “she” wants to elude and rob me of sleep for one more night, I will have a victory. Trying not to notice the light that will soon leak from the horizon, I declared the blinking curser on the blank page of my laptop the capital L loser and blog about my typical night as a writer. Maybe now I can get some sleep. Maybe.
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