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Blogs by Barbara Worton
Writing Myself To Sleep
3/2/2008 8:05:27 AM
It's National Sleep Awareness Week, and that's important to me because I don't find it easy to fall asleep. It's not that I'm not tired or that I don't enjoy sleep. I do. I just can't give into sleep easily. I've got other things to do, more important things, and I'm always thinking that I could be putting those eight hours to better use.
Baloney, I know. There are critical health reasons for sleeping a good eight hours a night. Sleep is not a waste of time. That said, I still like to make my sleep time more productive. That's one of the reasons I sleepwrite--write three pages starting with the first word that pops into my head--before crawling between the sheets and turning out my bedroom light.
Not only does sleepwriting send me into a deep sleep, it assuages my guilt that I haven't done any "real creative writing" all day long. Sleepwriting is how I wrote, Bedtime Stories: The short, long and tall tales of a sleepwriter. Sleepwriting also shapes my dreams. I think it's the act of writing from the subconscious that sets me up for happy dreams--often with me playing the heroic role--and for waking up with a lot of positive energy.
The morning after sleepwriting, my writing flows more easily. I don't have to sludge through my own filters to access the story I want to tell. That applies even when I'm on a writer-for-hire assignment. My work is better and the process of writing is easier. I think some of the people who have reviewed Bedtime Stories have been better able to articulate just what sleepwriting is all about better than I have.
Ilene Segalove, the co-author of List Your Self: Listmaking as the Way to Self-discovery, said in her review, “ I also think Barbara Worton's sleepwriting concept is a wonderful way for writers to put together material in a kind of ‘I give myself permission’ way.” Noelle Hannon, PhD, Clinical Psychologist, writes, "Barbara Worton opens the door to her creative unconscious mind and invites us to enter the magical world of metaphor. Consequently, the reader is seduced into a state of joyful relaxation.”
For me, sleepwriting mirrors some of the process work I did with The Theatre Within, founded by Alec Rubin. It gets me closer to my self. I hear my own voice, and I'm saying exactly what I want to say, and that doesn't happen very often during the course of the day. Maybe that's why, after sleepwriting, I fall asleep feeling good about what I've done and ready to do what I do best the following day.
Barbara Worton, www.greatlttlebooksllc.com
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March 2008 Blogs
• Writing Myself To Sleep - Sunday, March 02, 2008
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