Jesus, brain, leave me alone!

Woke up at 5:00 this morning with an incredibly cool idea for a book.

I mean, maybe because I've just thought it, I'm overestimating it.  But...really, an awesome idea.

Just popped into my brain, like the force of it was enough to jam me awake.

I lay there, trying to go back to sleep, as the first paragraph formed in my head.  So I get up and unplug my computer from the bedroom and take it down to the office, where I am now.  At 5:00 in the fucking morning, with the coffee pot empty. (Yes, I'll drink day old coffee if I'm desperate enough.)

I've just written a couple of pages.

Jesus, brain, leave me alone!

25 years of nuthin' , then idea after idea after idea, more than I can probably ever write. 

Lots of guys my age are just now coming to a kind of relaxed approach to their writing career.  Jaded, even.

Not me. 

I feel like a teenager who's so full of bullshit he can't get it all out.  And now it's starting to eat into my life in a way that is disruptive.  I mean, I can't keep having these 4 hours sleep nights, either because I'm still so jazzed from the day's writing that I can't fall asleep at night, or because my brain insists on writing in its sleep and waking me up early in the morning with an insistent buzz.

I feel almost disconnected.  I'll be sorting books in Linda's store, and someone will ask me a question and I'll go, "Huh?" like the words don't make any sense. 

When I work at my own store, I feel like I've been away forever and don't understand what's happening.  It is a pretty steep learning curve that first hour while I get back into the rhythm of it.

This is the same thing that happened to me 25 years ago when I more or less stopped writing.  I couldn't fit running a store and having a marriage and being a stepdad with the disruptions of writing.

Now I can.  I think.  I hope.

This isn't mania, I don't think.  I mean, it doesn't have that flavor.  It just feels like a creative excitement, like I've been let loose.

There is no way all these ideas can be done.  Or if done, that they'll all get proper publishing treatment. 

I've already decided I'll need to resort to a penname, and have a couple of different tracks.  For instance, the books that come spilling out, fully formed, and the books that I go back to rewrite again and again. 

One thing is for sure.  I can't afford to have every one of these tomes edited by a paid editor.  Some of them are going to have to be edited by me.  Which really isn't so bad.  My grammar and spelling suffice, I think.

At first, the ideas came in a stately procession.  "Ah, yes.  That is a book."  Then I'd write it, and set it aside.  There might be a month between ideas, or longer.

Now, the ideas seem to be speeding up.  The process is getting messy as I'm hurrying to get them all down on paper (or computer.)

Who knew?  I mean, I was writing stuff in those 25 years, but I don't remember having great ideas.  I had a zombie story going, and a mystery, and a couple of fantasy type stories, but they weren't exactly inspired.

I think it's because I've made this transition over the last couple of years, without completely meaning to, of being "the writer." 

Allowed myself, if you will, to devote a lot of my brain space to generating ideas. 

In some ways, it's the same energy I brought to my business.  The same letting loose of strictures.  Being my own boss and doing it my own way.

Writing is even easier, though not completely cost free.  I'm going to have to buy a new laptop, for instance.  (The one I bought at Christmas last year was a dud.  Should have stuck to Apple.)

Well, I want to finish Tuskers first, so this new book will have to wait.

If it will let me.