“I can think of no greater welfare than a night of uninterrupted sleep.”
Ebeneezer Scrooge, A Christmas Carol.
Here I am again at three in the morning putting pen to paper because my characters simply refuse to let me sleep by carrying on all night with their shenanigans.
They can be quite merciless at times, I mean, really? Here’s me, just about to settle down for a good night’s kip, my head is just about to hit the pillow, and BAM! … It begins.
Now I’m faced with two choices, I can either ignore them completely and try to remember what they were doing later, which usually ends in dismal failure. Or, I can get up at some ungodly hour and write it down while it’s still fresh in my mind.
Oh … the agonies of choice, laying awake all night because my characters are playing mind games, or sitting at the computer all night trying to write down whatever it is that my characters are trying to tell me.
Old Ebeneezer, the curmudgeonly old soul, hit the nail right on the head when he said that he could think of no greater welfare than a night of uninterrupted sleep. If I’m honest, I’d much rather that it was the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future badgering me all night for one night of the year, rather than the constant barrage on my senses from my characters.
Who am I kidding?
I’m a writer and that’s very much the nature of the beast, so I have to take the rough with the smooth, though I would prefer a bit less of the rough and a lot more of the smooth so that I’m able to get some respite, because when all is said and done, I’m not Benjamin Button and I’m not getting any younger.
Shaun McBride
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