Writers Block

Twenty started drafts but nothing finished. I’ve been struck with somewhat of a writers block lately. It’s a real thing. I start articles and then I lose interest and leave them unfinished and now some of them are past their ‘best by’ date. I was enthusiastic when I started them but now I go back and reread them and think ‘what drivel’.

I’ve been busyier doing things and I haven’t been reading which is an absolute must. So I’m looking for inspiration elsewhere and not finding it. Also when I sit down to write I find myself dozing off which is a sure sign of boredom or …. sleep deprivation. Speaking of sleep deprivation, I haven’t been getting much sleep lately. The problem is that I stay up too late and by the time I go to bed Mike is in his heavy snoring sleep and I simply cannot get to sleep with all that racket. I’m not blaming Mike. I know snoring is typical for most men, especially as they age and even for some women, myself included, but it’s a problem. I know I could rectify this problem by going to bed before Mike (like I did when I was a working woman) and if I fall asleep before him all the racket in the world won’t wake me up. I hear nothing but the beat of my own heart.

So I know you would all say ‘well just go to bed earlier’. That’s a simple solution. Not so simple really. Because you see, I have two grown children living at home (and I’m totally fine with that) but during the summer when one was unemployed along with myself and the other worked from home a lot, I never had my alone time which I desperately need plus they also stay up quite late so I stayed up even later so I could pretend I was alone. Some nights I’m just waiting for them to get home. Why do kids go out at 10:00 at night anyway? Sorry, I can’t afford therapy so that’s not an option.

Now they are both working and away from home more, leaving me here on my own (heaven) but I’m already in this bad habit of staying up late. I’m sure it’s an easier habit to shake than smoking but here we are. And by we I mean me.

One night last week I was so tired and the snoring was so loud I finally decided I had to go somewhere quieter. When lexie was in Toronto I went into her room one night. The silence was music to my ears but alas, last week she was home so I had no choice but to go get the fur cushions and blankets from the TV room and make myself a little bed on the walkin closet floor. Basically sound proof because of the insulation that a wardrobe the size of Chinooks Zara store provides. But the floor was much harder than I ever remembered sleeping on the floor could be. I guess that’s what you notice when you are 60. I do have boney parts. I guess that was encouraging. I wasn’t going to get any sleep on the floor either. Just when I was debating, at 3:50am, which was the lesser of the two evils, the racket or the painfully hard floor, both legs when into a full leg cramp. I’m talking full on painful debilitating cramping. I had no control. At least when I am in bed I have some leverage to get myself out of bed and standing on the floor where I can push against something solid to alleviate the pain. But since I was lying down on the floor I was at the mercy of my cramping body. I could not bend my legs to get myself off the floor and I just lay there helplessly whimpering with both legs quaking in pain and shot out straight in front of me, gleefully torturing and mocking me and Mike could hear none of this because, as he pointed out in the morning, the closet was excellently sound proof. And so go my nights. Yes, we have no violins.

Where was I? Right, my writers block. I need to start going to bed earlier and getting more sleep and then I will be awake enough to read more (which also brings me great joy and inspiration) and, in turn, I think I will write more. A writers life can be lonely and barren at times. Writing is not for wimps I’m realizing. I need to toughen up and go back and finish all those started articles. Stay tuned.