I mentioned in a previous post that I often wake up, sometimes in the middle of the night, with ideas for stories. What I didn’t mention is, I have a history of solving problems while asleep.
Once, in the late ’90s, we were wrestling with a way to format bylines for the newspaper the way we wanted in a new system we were programming. The technical support team from the vendor didn’t have any suggestions and we were on the cusp of changing our formatting due to what seemed to be insurmountable limitations.
One morning in the middle of our training, though, I woke up and had the solution. When I arrived at our morning session, I couldn’t wait to show the trainers. It was a simple solution, really, but one that had escaped us all; and it had come to me in a dream.
This type of thing has happened to me on many occasions and it happens with my writing frequently. But yesterday was a new one for me.
As I was waking up, I not only had an entire scene in my mind for Gia’s book, I also had an outline of a process I thought might work for a thorny issue at work. I currently work with an AI program to write python to take files in various formats and make them work for our print newspaper system.
What astonished me, though, was that both of these things were in my mind at the same time. I’m pretty sure that has never happened before. I actually hope it doesn’t happen too many times before I retire in a couple of years; I’ve had a headache for two days!
I’m hoping now to turn my attention to the Advent season, preparing for Christmas and to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior. May my mind clear enough to focus on the blessings of the season.
I hope all who read this have a blessed Thanksgiving and a joyful Christmas.
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