Inspiration Struck!

A few days ago I wrote about wanting to write a children's book for Daniel. Actually, there are several books I'd like to write for Daniel. The problem, of course, is that when I sustained my head injury, the parts of the brain from which creativity and organization flow were messed up. I sometimes get a flash of an idea, but then I can't do anything with it because I can't get started. It's not a matter of focus or determination, it's just that my mind has a hard time breaking down a project into smaller parts to figure out the right sequence. As an example, it took me over six months to make a statement with the company where I fell because I couldn't think to put my medical statements in chronological order. It actually took help from someone else to do that. I'm better now, but nowhere near where I'd need to be to actually resume my writing career. For the most part, I've made peace with that, but I still long to write something lasting for my son.

We've been talking a lot about sleep lately in the de Jong household. Mostly because we aren't getting much of it. Daniel used to sleep through the night, but a few weeks ago, he decided he needed to wake up every three hours. Niels gets up with him at night so that shouldn't be a problem for me...except that I am a light sleeper and Niels is anything but. So Daniel wakes me up, I wake Niels up, Niels feeds the baby, falls back asleep and I'm still up.

So tonight I was thinking about all this and an idea started simmering in my head for a bedtime book about a little boy who doesn't want to go to bed, but once he does, has exciting dreams and then doesn't want to get up in the morning. It was like old times and the words started coming. (Most of my published book was written between 1am and 4am, for whatever reason, creativity never seemed to strike when the sun was out). I knew I'd lose it if I slept on it, so I got up and wrote the whole thing. Then I found little graphics and make it into a PowerPoint presentation. Then I printed it out and made a mock up. Yes, I'm quite pleased with myself.

Daniel is too young to appreciate my efforts, so I woke up Niels at 3am to read him my story. He didn't share my enthusiasm at first, but when he realized I wrote something, he was a trooper and listened. He even laughed at the funny parts. I love my husband. And I love my little story for my son.