Wisdom on the Whim (or Why Didn't I Write that Brilliant Thought Down?!)

Write down the thoughts of the moment. 
Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable. 
~ Francis Bacon

 

 

L

ast night I couldn’t fall asleep.  Maybe it was the BBC Sherlock Homes marathon I pulled (bloody brilliant!), or the new paranormal series I started reading (Bones is my new undead hero and Cat is a kick acre half-undead heroine!), or maybe it was the atrocious amount of recovery naps I’d been taking (stupid kidney stones!) 

So there I was, curled up in a little ball, trying desperately to shut off the windmills of my mind.  It was like a montage in there ~ bits and bobs and flashes: insight, poetry, drama.  And instead of getting up right away and writing it all down, or at the least, grabbing my phone and recording it, I thought: I’ll remember to type it all out tomorrow ~ much faster.

No, you nit wit ~ you didn’t!!   You never do!  You forget it all! Every. Single. Time.

Gah!  Why do I do this to myself?  If I’m going to wait for inspiration to burst through the door on its own, the least I could do is offer it a seat!  But did I? 

Nope.

I tried to follow the trail, each sentence a fragment of beauty. . .and very next thought was: “No one will want to read that anyway.  It’s almost three in the morning, it probably isn’t any good anyway.  And the person you’re thinking of reciting this to will never give you the reaction you are looking for.”

Seriously, I am a very strange person who has these long, interior dialogues ~ yes, dialogues, not monologues ~ that end up with me burying my head in one of three places: 

1.  A book (two actually: re-read of Shelly Crane’s Collide and new one: Jeanine Frost’s Night Huntress Series.  There were two others but they were embarrassingly dreadful so they don’t count.  I’m still trying to scrub my grey cells.)

2.  A really great show or movie (did I mentioned the BBC Sherlock Holmes marathon? Gah!  Why do I always fall for the emotionless NTs!? Argh!!!!  It’s the hair.  It has to be.)

3.  My own head (i.e. imagination ~ which strangely enough, is what got me into this mess in the first place!)

The sad thing is, I actually do follow my own advice ~ my journal was at the foot of my bed, and another notebook was on my bedside table, right next to the ever present cell phone ~  just waiting for me to snatch it up and pour out my eloquence into its little tin ear.

Fear is a dirty little bugger.  He always seems to wait until you’re over-tired, over-stimulated, over-fed, over-criticized, over-something and then he just slides right in, speaks his filthy piece, and then simply fades out.  Was he even there?  And you’re left with: “wait, what was the first line?  It was brilliant ~ it caught the emotion just so, and oh, blast! Now it’s gone and I should have written it down.  But since I didn’t remember it, it must not have really been noteworthy.  Ah well, another line will come tomorrow and this time, I’ll be prepared.  I won’t let anything get in between me and my pen.  Or my cell.”

Perhaps I’m right.  Perhaps the little lines that seemed to dance in harmony at three a.m. would have lumbered like elephant feet at eleven.  But now we’ll never know.

Will we?

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Have you written anything brilliant at three a.m.?