Last night was one of those wonderfully horrible nights. I wanted to go to sleep. I was tired. But my subconscious must've been working overtime because it dumped a few choice phrases and scenes into my consciousness right as my head hit the pillow. Meaning: I lay in bed, grateful I've survived another day ... and BOOM. Lightning strikes.
"Ah crap," I said out loud. Not because an idea hit, but because my notebook was in the basement. I trudged downstairs, flipped on the lights, and scribbled down just enough to A) get the words out of my head and B) remember what I needed to write more today.
I took the notebook upstairs, placed it on the nightstand, and crawled back into bed. And then I spent the next hour thinking about the screenplay. I didn't want to, I tried thinking of other things that'd put me to sleep. But it didn't work for quite some time. My mind kept returning to the words, the scenes, the aspects of selling that seem daunting. The General Worry of Things Undone.
Eventually I fell asleep, but 7AM came much too soon.
Sometimes I stare at a white page for an hour. Sometimes the compulsion is so strong, it moves my body out of bed in the dead of night, down two flights of stairs in search of a pen.
If that ain't magic, I don't know what is.
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