I’ve been working for three days on a single conversation between two people. It should take up a page at most—two, double-spaced—and it really shouldn’t be that big a deal. But I’ve been living with it and dying with it moment by moment for three days and no sooner do I get to the computer screen, or the tablet of paper, than I start to yawn. 

Yesterday I realized, as I succumbed to my third nap of the day, that many clever and succinct ways of wording this conversation were running through my brain just at the moment my head touched the pillow.  And this was not the first time this had happened. So today I got tricky and took my pencil and tablet to bed. 

Sure enough, no sooner had I lain down than a sentence popped into my head. I wrote it (in the dark), closed my eyes, and suddenly thought of another sentence. This went on, with variations, until I had covered two whole pages with brilliant thoughts. And then, secure in the knowledge of a job well done, I went to sleep.

I woke up an hour later, still pleased with myself, and went straight to the computer to transcribe my notes. The only thing is, I couldn’t read them.

back | more | Essays