Always at night…
“Write about it by day, and dream about it by night.”
E.B. White
It almost always comes at night. It doesn’t matter if I’ve been up for sixteen hours and the night before, I only slept for three and if I don’t get some sleep now I may not even get three hours because the baby will make sure of it.
I write during the day, I pound my head (figuratively) during the day when a plot twist irritates me, stumps me, or just won’t flow. I’ll bang my head for days, write around the problem part, stew about it, brood about it…and when I least expect it, I’m laying down in bed and viola…the solution appears.
Not sure why. Maybe it’s because I’ve cleared my mind of the story and that all I needed was a little perspective to figure out the problem. Or maybe it’s a Murphy’s Law thing… I wanted a solution and it’s going to come when it’s not always convenient. 
Or it could be one of those… Be careful what you wish for…deals.
Sometimes the problem is seriously bad…as in maybe having to pitch the entire thing and start from scratch. When I start thinking along those dire lines, I really start to stress. Trying to work it through, I’ll talk to myself, I’ll talk to God, I’ll talk to the dog, but that isn’t when the answer comes.
It comes right when I’m ready to heave the laptop against a wall and have a tantrum.
If you’re having a plot problem, take a few steps back. Go at it from a different angle. Talk to God or talk to the dog. And keep a notepad by the bed because if you’re anything like me, that’s when you’ll figure out what the problem is.
November 20th, 2007 at 8:32 am
I think the “brink-of-sleep flash of insight” has something to do with clearing your head in preparation for shutting down for the night. That frees up brain cells that weren’t previously available to address your creative issues and maybe come at it from a new vantage point. (It’s all highly scientific, I swear.)
Ah, who needs sleep anyway? Gotta prioritize!
A lot of my plot knots also unravel in the shower…
November 20th, 2007 at 10:01 am
Like Kerry most of my insight happens in the shower. That’s why I have a pack of bathtub crayons in there.
I think it has something to do with focus. You’re so concentrated on one aspect that you can’t see anything else. When you turn your attention elsewhere, voila, the solution can be seen. My .02 cents.
November 20th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Shiloh, this is my process to a T. 8^) In bed, at night or upon waking, is when I sort through all my plot stuff. It’s when I solve my plot snafus, and when I realize mistakes I’ve made that I need to got back to correct.
The shower works, too, and I’ve thought about covering the shower wall with plastic wrap and using a sharpie so that it won’t wash off, lol! Then I can take a picture of what I’ve written with my digital camera, load the shot on my computer, and type everything I wronte in the shower into the book. But I’d probably end up running out of hot water before my brainstorm was done.
November 20th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Sleeping on a plot problem often works for me, though the shower is a good source of inspiration (may have to try those bathtub crayons).
I also find that Sunday morning is a great moment to solve plot problems. My mind drifts during services and the solution comes to me. I don’t think that’s exactly what the sermon is meant to do, but the quiet of the chapel really does seem to help the thought processes.