Brain on Overdrive

A few months ago, I decided to make writing a priority. Well, even more than a priority than it already was. I’m trying to cut out even more time during my day to write, and I think I’ve been successful so far.

I go to the engineering lab with my husband as often as I can, because there’s nothing to do there but write. Our NaNoWriMo group has decided to meet once a month to write, and my co-ML and I meet twice a week. There’s plenty of opportunities.

Since making that decision, I wrote 177,000 words in November, which included 2 books, and a partial of a character sketch, and I’ve almost completed 2/3 of a revision for the first novel.

There’s only one downside, if you can call it that.

I’m having a hard time turning my brain off. There’s always something I have to mull over, something that I need to work on. Yesterday, I was stuck on a scene that I knew needed to be rewritten. I decided to try cleaning, and voila, the answer came to me. Good thing there was a write in for the SCBWI group! 

Last night, as I was sleeping, my brain came up with the bare bones of a query. Query letters are hard for me, because I don’t know how to get all of the ideas into so few words. But my brain figured it out… at 4am. I had to jump out of bed to write it down before I lost it.

I know it doesn’t sound like a bad thing, and maybe it’s not. My brain is solving problems, and I’m getting more writing done than I have in my life.

What do the rest of you do when this happens? How do you tell your brain to relax for a few hours?