It’s 4:17am. Beautiful Baby Boy (3B) and I have been up since 3 feeding and helping him with the resultant burps. It’s a harsh cycle for the little man – feed, get sleepy from a lovely full tum and mum cuddles, then get rudely interrupted by a tummy that’s still trying to work out how to receive food from above (mouth) rather than below (umbilical cord). So we do our best to get some burps out, which wakes him up a bit, and then he’s frustrated and seeing as he’s awake now it’s a good time to get some extra milk in and off we go again…(I do sometimes try a dummy when he just wants to suck but is brimful already. Sometimes it even works.)
This is why this is the perfect time to work on my book. When a settle to sleep attempt fails and instead of a chance to sleep it’s back to square one again, instead of just no-sleep horror I can also get a little thrill that at least I can carry on with whatever bit of book I was in the middle of sorting out before he finished his feed and my creative genius was cut short.
As long as I can still nudge my colander-brain into some semblance of functioning, it’s a fantastic time to be working on a Revise and Resubmit for an agent. I can’t work on the actual writing (sadly I’ve not yet mastered one-handed laptop juggling and after writing a choppy draft one on my phone while night feeding Child #4 I know I need to use the laptop and a higher functioning brain for this rewrite).
What I can work on is All The Stuff. The detail of social hierarchies in my protagonist’s home culture. The nuances of the different religious practises. Weaving in backstory so the climax has more context, developing character, trimming the POV fat…all the things Potentially Interested Agent and I discussed just before 3B was born. Instead of stewing in my own frustration a chance to sleep has just been snatched from me by 3B’s gastric struggles, I’m swimming through oceans, wrestling dark magic, and falling in love.
Writing’s awesome. And here goes put down attempt #48642. Wish me luck!
Country Mum Writes 