It’s only week 1 of NaNoWriMo 2023. And it’s already happened—NaNosomnia.

What is NaNosmonia you ask?

NaNosomnia is where you try to go to bed at a reasonable hour because you have reached that age where you can no longer function without at least 6 solid hours of sleep and since you wake up at the same time every morning despite what time you go to bed, you desperately need those 6 hours. But it’s NaNoWriMo month and every time you lay down, your brain kicks into high gear and starts working out plot problems, or adding additional scenes, or figuring out ways to have things make more sense, or developing character profiles, and so you have to get out of bed to write it all down because if you don’t, either your brain won’t let you fall asleep at all or you’ll forget it by morning and be kicking yourself.

Either way you’re screwed.

I already wrote about the challenge of November 1 falling on a Wednesday. That was the first night I got to bed late. Thursday night I did better because I worked from home that day and didn’t have anything else schedule except my Thursday workout, which I also do at home. And I wrote a bit over 3100 words, which I felt good about.

Isn’t it amazing how much time you save by not having to commute.

I also worked from home yesterday, and so I was able to start writing immediately after logging off from my day job. I logged about 1700 words.

I felt pretty good about what I had written and was at a good place to stop. So I took some time to do other things. I read a couple of chapters of one of my 4 book club books (I’ve pretty much already given up on the other 4 book clubs. with NaNo, I just don’t have the bandwidth this month.) I walked up to the market to get a bottle of wine and something for dinner. I put together mini puzzle. (I’ve banned myself from larger puzzles until I get to 25,000 words.) I texted with a couple of my friends. And then I decided I’d be smart and go to bed a bit early since it had been a long week.

Well, the NaNo gremlins had other ideas. I gave myself good advice to go to bed early but it just didn’t work out.

I laid in bed, trying to relax. I was tired after all. I was close to drifting off and then BAM! A new scene hit me. A scene that needed to come in between two existing scenes. A link to make the story work a bit better and my brain kicked into high gear.

I tried to just focus it in my mind so I’d remember it in the morning. I told myself I needed to go to sleep and rest. I had successfully done that Thursday night when I had a character bio come to me as I was drifting off. But last night, nope. Nothing short of getting up and getting it on the page would work.

At 10:45pm, I dragged myself out of my cozy warm bed, headed back to my workspace, and proceeded to write another 3000 words.

That’s right, I wrote three thousand more words.

A bit before midnight, I got on paper what I needed to get out of my brain and headed back to bed. But then I still couldn’t sleep, so I started drafting this post.

Now, today I plan to take a nap and hope that between NaNosomnia and tomorrow’s time change (that’s right U.S. friends, we switch from daylight savings time back to standard time tomorrow), my brain doesn’t implode.

NaNosomnia—it’s a real thing. So if you see me walking around mainlining caffeine, you know why.