Insomnia and writing

I fall asleep quickly and deeply. Put me in a car and my eyes close. Try and read mid-afternoon? Sheep, who want to be counted, are not needed.

So why am I writing about insomnia?

Because many nights between two and four I wake and stay awake at least two hours. Sometimes I read, but mostly I write in my head.

I am currently working on a book called Day Care about four single mothers who support each other through misc. problems. The narrator is a journalist who is writing about the four mothers.

My characters move into my bedroom those sleepless times and tell me about their lives.

Sally describes her mother, whom she used to think of as delicate, as diminished. Her relationship to her mother going forward? Maybe Sally will come back soon and tell me.

Maura, after finally having her daughter diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy, is struggling to pay off huge medical bills and despite increased opportunities with her company is still faced with the same misogynistic boss.

Ashley, dating for the first time since her husband died, isn't sure she has time for a new man in her life even though he is nice. As lawyers, they share a client, a victim of domestic abuse who murdered her husband.

Anne-Marie turns to Sally for help. Should she let the feckless lover Sean back in her life, continue working as a professor in a field she loves and stay in the US where she is on a hard-found tenure track. Her alternative? Return to Paris where her husband insists their twin daughters stay?

In my xxxxth twist and turn last night, I decided the last chapter should be written by Brenda, the chronicler of the women's lives. Brenda, has learned to care about all four women and their daughters. I decided my last line of the book: "It's called life."

This morning, I put notes on the manuscript, which I won't get to writing for much too long.

Why?

I need to finish final corrections on Triple Deckers to be released shortly.

There are so many summer people here in Argelès to see and tonight is the Correfoc, fire runners. Men dressed as devils in asbestos suits shoot fireworks off their bodies to the beat of drums. It is my favorite fête bringing up all the latent pagan urges in my DNA.

This week we are going to a Rodin/Maillol with Swiss friends we see too little of.

I need to update the manuals about the house and dog for our dog sitter while we go home to Geneva. There we need to:

• Check out our flood damaged flat
• Attend the once in 20 year Fête des Vignerons
• Spend four days in Vienna (as the cliché goes--a dirty job but someone has to do it) with my former writing mate
• Catch up on bills/paperwork
• Have a tooth implant
• Check in with my dermatologist.
• Get a certified copy of our marriage certificate
• Hopefully attend a family of choice get together
• Celebrate the Swiss National Day

All this slows down the writing on Day Care. No matter how many times my characters sit on my bed, telling me what they want to do, chores, friends, slow down my word production. Some things can't be given up such as keeping creditors happy. Other things such as time with friends, I don't want to give up.

As Brenda says in my book, "It's called life."  Or at least she will say it when I get to that last chapter.