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Writer's pictureJack LaFountain

Know Jack #299 Asleep at the Wheel

Updated: Dec 14, 2022

“Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep…”

Proverbs 24:33


Except in very rare cases, my head making contact with a pillow produces instant sleep. I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse, but I’m thinking positive because those cases in which it does not happen are a real drag.


“Brain! Shut the hell up, I’m trying to sleep over here!” I rail at it—generally to no avail.

Writing is like that. It calls for slipping away from the world spinning around and a thousand thoughts of people and places clamoring to be remembered and escaping into a private world of fantasy. Sometimes that is easier to want than to obtain. However, the relentless, driving need to write never goes away.


It is faith in that need to write that is the salvation of writers like me. I know the outside world will eventually collapse of its own weight like the sleep-deprived body. In the rubble, the bleary-eyed muse will brush the dust from his cloak and step up with a handful of magic.


I think the trick maybe, like the sleeper, not to get out of bed. Sit in front of the keyboard, the cursor taunting you until you just begin to throw the thoughts, worries, and memories all over the blank space in a senseless hodgepodge of nonsense. It may not be anything like what you set out to do. Those snippets are why writers have bags in which they store story seeds. For me, it’s one reason I have three blogs. If I can’t be witty or inspiring, I stand a good chance of getting derisive laughter and a gentle shaking of your head.


I’m doing that right now. I started off a bit ago working on the promised sequel to Bayou Moon only to be confronted by physically induced mental fogginess. While waiting for it to pass into clarity, comes a chance to share my own comparison to insomnia. Everything’s a story, the hope is to capture a part of that world and drag it onto a page.


With that thought in mind, I’m heading back to Oklahoma and the Blood Moon waiting for me to bring a moonbeam back with me.

Maranatha




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