I am not one of those writers who carries a notebook, and I definitely don’t keep one by my bed for writing down ideas that I might suddenly wake up with in the middle of the night. My thoughts have always been that if whatever idea I come up with has enough sticking power, it will still be there when I wake up. I am crabby (at best) when I’m woken up in the middle of the night anyway. Even when I wake myself up.

The few times I have bothered to write down something in the middle of the night, I woke up either to find something that made no sense, or an idea that was beyond lame. However…

Last night, and I do consider this night even though it was technically about 5:30am, I heard the unmistakable sounds of my cat about to barf. I knew from the way my legs were pinned down, he was on the bed so I sat up, grabbed him and dumped him on the floor (now you know why we have hardwood floors!). Luckily, he did not upchuck and I should’ve been able to just go back to sleep, but instead there was this character in my head telling me her story. I told her to shut up. She wouldn’t listen. Finally, I dragged myself out of bed. I was not happy.

In forty minutes I laid down five pages. What they are, I have no idea. The beginning of a new book? The middle? Rubbish? Surprisingly, even in the light of day, they seem like they might have potential. Because I have no immediate plans for this, I thought I’d let you take a peek. You can’t steal any of it though because maybe it will become a book. All I know is that if I can write five pages when I’m half asleep, I should write at 6am more often. And then go back to bed until noon!