Friday, January 04, 2008

Eureka!

I've been working really hard the last few evenings, doing real money-paying work [resists temptation to spit], and I've been going to bed with a buzzing brain, and thus, insomnia. As a consequence, I have had some hours to rehash plots, characters, titles, names and so on.

Last night, about half past midnight, number-three-novel title came to me. This was a Eureka! moment, and I sat up in bed like a shot. Of course, a proper writer would have a Moleskine and pencil beside the bed. Me? I found a dried-up felt-tip and a copy of Women's Weekly's Christmas Special; but it sufficed, and I wrote down my new title.

Now why is it, when the baby's still wailing at 2am (after three drinks of water, a cuddle, milk, Nurofen, Medised...), or when a child has been sick in its bed, or when you go into labour, men just mutter "this is not a good time" and go back to sleep? And then, when there's absolutely nothing wrong and you just need to write something down (knowing perfectly well that he won't wake up, because the chimney hasn't fallen in) he wakes up!

The funny thing was, he was really concerned. Was I alright?
"Yes, sorry, just, ahem, thought of...er...a...um...a title".
"Oh," he said. "That's good. Have you written it down?"

I shan't grumble about him leaving the milk out for, what shall we say, three days?

7 comments:

CL Taylor said...

Don't you just love those Eureka moments! It's almost always when you're in bed too. Of course now I'm really curious about the title!

Oh, and I'm with you on the milk thing. Why do they do that?!

CL Taylor said...

p.s. Just to let you know I'm using your wordcounter for novel #2. Thanks loads :o)

Lane Mathias said...

And the title is ........?????

Love your bedside writerly matter. Moleskines are soo over-rated:-)

And what a nice hubby:-)

Jen said...

We want to know the title - we do! We do!

Please?

HelenMWalters said...

My late night thoughts get written down on all sorts of bizarre things! It doesn't matter as long as you write them on something x

Jenny Beattie said...

Hhhmmm, I'd say three days is fair.

Receipts are what I write my stuff down on. I leave them in my handbag and they get fluffier and fluffier til I can't read them anyway.

Can we know the title?

JJx

Leigh Forbes said...

And the title is....
Ah, you see, the trouble is that when I actually looked at this marvellous title written down, I thought it rather, er, M&B. Perhaps if it had been written in a moleskine, it would have looked better...

Cally - glad you like the word meter!

Lane - Would've agreed with you over the moleskines, only, I'm not so sure now...

Jen - if I could do 1pt type in comments I would tell you, but I can't; so instead, I'm going to try to mould it into a shape fit for revelation.

Helen - Ha ha ha! The mind boggles!

JJ - generally, I write things on the back of my hand, because it's the only thing I have yet to lose.