TO SLEEP, PERCHANCE TO DREAM

Ay, there's the rub, indeed.

If I choose sleep and the hope of dreaming amid some rockin' REM sleep, then I lose precious writing time for my continuing 40 Days of Writing challenge.

My God, we are over half way through...haven't missed a day. Don't want to risk that now. It's too much fun!

But if I write -- and the good stuff never  seems to come to me before 11 p.m. -- I tend to stay up a wee bit later than I should. Which is no big deal...at first.

I tell myself that four hours of sleep a night is plenty, as I pound away at my keyboard. But eventually, inevitably, though I start out as just a harmless Sleepytime Gal, I wind up as Mommy Dearest or Zombie Woman or some horrific combination of both.

And if I write in the a.m., as I am doing this very second, I tend to end up missing a shower here and there, or I don't have time to dry my hair, or, God forbid, I have to forego brushing my eyelashes with mascara.  My co-workers deserve better than that. No one should have to look at me sans mascara.

Yes, writing every day for 40 days is truly a monumental challenge. Cuz sometimes, I just don't have anything to say. I know that may be difficult for some who know me to believe, but old Gabby Girl here has a hard time sometimes stringing meaninfgul sentences together for publication.

And while I could have written about actress Doris Singleton passing away yesterday at the age of 92 -- she played Lucy and Ricky Ricardo's bridge-playing pal on I Love Lucy --  I promised friends I would not write yet another snippet about passing famous people or aging or some teary combination of both. At least not for awhile.

Hey, writers have their dark side. That's what makes us writers. Just ask Stephen King. Yikes.

But anway...here it is, the stroke of 6 a.m., and I should be heading for the shower, but I haven't really said yet what I came here to say.

And that is...writers write. No matter the need for sleep or a shower. And while I believe in the all-important adage, "NEVER, EVER leave the house without wearing mascara", sometimes, as a writer, one does have to make sacrifces.

And so I continue with my 40 Days of Writing challenge...tired and cranky, yes. Wet hair, sometimes. And naked eyelashes, to boot. But a spritz of perfume and a dab of lotion, and I am, good to go. Till I collapse in an exhausted and, shall-we-say, scented heap on the couch at the end of the day. And then it's time to write again. Thank God.

I love to write. It is my life's blood.

I also want to say that last night I did get some awesome sleep and while I'd like to say I had lovely dreams -- like I dreamed my whole house was clean --  in all honesty I dreamed about watching not one but several airplanes fall out of the sky and burst into flames before my eyes.

Ack.

Damn dark side.

Happy Friday Everyone!