When characters wake you up at 5am.

Early this morning, it rained. And I mean, IT RAINED. There was howling, a torrential downpour and all the general misery that is caused when the weather wakes you up at 5am. Hubby jumped out of bed, convinced our house was drifting down the street on a wave. The children moaned from the recesses of their stinky rooms. The cat then decided it was a great time to remind me her bowl needed refilling. Needless to say, it feels as if I got no sleep.

However, my sleep was rather light even before the storm hit and it’s because I was obsessing over which direction to take a character in my current work-in-progress. I must have tried to fall asleep for at least an hour, mulling over this particular heroine. Eventually, I did drop off.

Ah, the sweet bliss of being able to forget one’s writing woes for a while!

Then the rain hit. It began to pound my window, like some demon out of a Stephen King novel.  My eyes flew open. Once I realized the cause of the commotion was a storm, and not the apocalypse, I closed my eyes once more.

No sleep.

Guess which thoughts once again invaded my brain?

Do I want to change the heroine’s back story? Do I even like her back story? Is it compelling enough? What about the hero’s source of angst. I don’t think it’s “angsty” enough. Will the heroine like him? Do I even like the heroine? Is she nuts? Am I nuts? Boy, this rain is loud. Did locusts just fly by my window? What about her hair? Should I change the color of her hair? I don’t think I like it anymore. Will my readers relate to a woman with that color of hair? Who the hell cares about hair anyway? I’m hungry. Am I always this hungry at 5am? I’d like a bowl of cereal. Would my heroine eat cereal? I don’t think she’s the sort of person who eats cereal. I have to pee….

I guess this whole post just proves a couple of points.

Falling asleep to a gentle rain can be soothing, whereas waking up to a storm is the opposite of soothing.

Also, writers are weird.