insomnia

i'm having trouble falling asleep at a decent hour these days. so i've been reading a lot. i've gone through a lot of books already, so last night i decided to try writing. but i was having a hard time conveying my thoughts into sentences, so i stopped writing and decided to read a book instead. the book: chicken soup for the writer's soul. i figured it's cheesy, but harmless, so it couldn't hurt to skim through a few pages. after reading a couple of stories, i was convinced that my writer's soul was touched. some passages:

my second marriage was tearing apart. troubled, i walked the path under the blue oaks along the consumnes river, a little light remaining at the end of the hot day. since we had acquired the ranch ten years ago, my husband and i had commuted the twenty-five miles from the california gold country to sacramento. but like many people, i lived in the fast lane... (from "writing can be magic")

one of my most profound fears, of course, was that the day would soon come when i would no longer be physically able to perform the simple act of climbing a favorite tree - clearly, ballet was out of the question. while i didn't want to face it, i rarely thought about anything else. on one particularly tough day, i went to my hideout straight off the school bus, book pack on my back and all. i'd tripped again, and had a spectacular fall at school, this time right in front of the boy i'd had a secret crush on... (from "dreams lost and found")

since books are printed on sheets about half the size of the average sheet of paper, i decided to cut my sheets of paper in halves. since books are printed on both sides of the page, i did that as well. since books are printed in single space, i did that too. i wanted to make it easy for the publishers. (from "a writer's journey")

there are 400 pages worth of this stuff, people trying to write a few thousand words on how they became writers, how they found their voice, overcame obstacles... zzz... BORING! but hey, it worked. i was so bored out of my mind with all the sap that it motivated me to write in my journal. now that's some chicken soup!