My Own Good Advice for Writers- Part 4

I woke in the middle of the night, just drifted out of sleep really. There was no mysterious noise or startling dream to awaken, I just surfaced from the very top point of the sleep cycle. Yes, every hour you submerge and descend to a depth of really sleeping sound and ascend to the shimmering light of just barely asleep in a circle, over and over as you flop around under your bedsheets, (on the average,40 times) through out the night.

When you hit that ice burg tip of floating in the nightness, you often just wake slightly, for a moment. You may or may not remember it the next day. Even if you don't wake totally as you ascend toward wakefulness and the reality of your bedroom, (or someone else's bedroom, the living room, dorm room, hotel room, back seat of your car or the cardboard shack in rail town or the park bench you are sleeping on - really folks, we are all the same, all one-) your unconscious mind takes a minute to survey your surroundings.

Like the proverbial Loch Ness monster, your unconsciousness lifts its head from the water of sleep, stretches it's long neck upward and sniffs the breeze with nostrils the size of oranges. The mist filled night of your dreams shakes loose for long enough that you are able to discern if there is a threat in your immediate area.

Searching right and left, sniffing, listening, your unconscious mind classifies all the scents and all the noises and every little thread of the fabric of reality that surrounds you.

Click Click Click, all of it snaps into place and into categories like car passing, light from street, cats thundering up and down the stairs playing. All is well in your space, no intruders, no threats and no smoke. Your unconscious mind swings to and fro as it does one last check with quivering nostrils. It sniffs the air around you one last time then it slowly starts to submerge, long neck and shimmering skin and eyes that glitter with the light of your soul, it disappears under the surface of your descent to deeper sleep and the start of another cycle/circle.

As I was saying, I woke and as often happens in the clarity of just awakening, I had the best idea for an article pop right in my head. Three main concepts followed by a few gags that needed polishing and a final thought to tie it all together just flitted ( yes it's a word, meaning to fly or move lightly and quickly) right into my mind. I had an ah-ha moment, and thought of the accolades and awards an article of such brilliance and insight would bring me. I reached for a pen on my bedside table and found none. I declined to jump out of my cozy cave under covers to go in search of a pen. I burrowed deep and told myself there was no way I could forget such an incredibly outstanding idea. I joined my Loch Ness monster in the deep shimmering depth of my own sleep.

I can't for the life of me remember what my brilliant article was about. So, my own good advice for writers is to have a pen and paper near the bed. If you don't, make yourself go get one because you may not remember your award winning idea in the morning.