codecalla

Sleeping at night is the typical semester routine, but on break I become the original full-fledged night owl I’ve always been.   Whether as a child I was sneaking up to watch Star Trek (original) episode re-runs or old Elvis Presley movies (I didn’t find out until I was in 1st grade he had passed and I loved Jailhouse Rock), or the usual, reading many of my books via flashlight under the covers, the night has always called to me.

I love the quietude and the peace, the stillness, and yet it seems that the darkness is alert.  Even though things are quiet, there is a sense of getting caught at being awake or being watched by unseen eyes.  While I love the night and all the peace it brings, the greatest challenge is getting back to a normal sleep schedule after a week of staying up all night and sleeping during the day.

Insomnia and dreams are fortuitous for me, however, since many bright ideas come from just having the time and energy to devote to thinking and pursuing “what-ifs”.  My next novel, of which I’ve five pages drawn, world building nearly finished, and main character fleshed out, has been largely completed during these peaceful night escapades.  This novel is going to be a series quartet, most likely, since that fits the scenario I’ve drawn up.  A character muscled his way in, and demanded to be given his due.  And he’s adorable…I absolutely love his commandeering, sweet fictional face.    The fun is I’ve already determined how I want the covers to look, I’ll just have to employ someone to create the art accordingly.  I just have to work out the sequencing of the story.

The novel will be loosely based on dreams, which is fitting for an insomniac night owl, like myself, to be writing about.  Also, I tend to have extremely vivid dreams that I remember.  I’ve had lucid dreams as well, in which you know you’re dreaming and can control it.  I’m looking into the science of dreams, as well as the the study, therapy, and religious interpretations.  The Dream of the Rood is one such example of literature about dream visions.  Historically dreams have had great significance, and great opposition.  Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat anyone?  The Biblical story is fascinating itself.  Well, I won’t get technical in the book, but it will inform my process and I can have fun with the research, which I absolutely love doing.

The novel is going to be a fantasy adventure.  I’ve not decided on romance for the main character as of now.  For me, the romance has to resonate emotionally.

So:  Insomnia’s cure?  An alarm clock.  Or rather, two of them.  Yep, I’ll go back on schedule as planned for tomorrow, with an iron-clad schedule that I must meet, and I will sleep well.