So, the other night, I was starting to write a scene where my main character can't sleep and is sitting in the living room, in the dark, embracing the quiet stillness. I thought it might be a really good thing, artistic even, to turn out the lights and sit in the dark, surrounded by quiet, to write the scene.

I turned everything off except for the laptop. I was fighting a migraine, and without the room lights on, the light from the monitor was really bright and was bothering me. I know how to turn the brightness down on the monitor on my other computer, but not on the laptop. I played with a few settings, and finally gave up and tilted the screen a bit to take a little of the glare out.

When I started to type, I couldn't find my home keys because I couldn't see the keyboard (I use a separate keyboard with my laptop because there are some quirky things wrong with the built-in keyboard). I finally found the home keys, but then I kept hitting whatever combination of keys it takes to keep getting that Restore-Minimize-Close menu at the far upper left part of a window. You know that menu? You can't type again until you click in the field you're typing in, to get rid of that menu. And then I couldn't find my home keys again.

And then Emily was getting into some papers and making noise, and I was becoming increasingly agitated, and I finally got up and turned the lights back on.

I wrote the scene anyway, with the lights on, and I think I was still able to capture the quiet stillness of the night.

Sometimes a writer just has to rely on imagination.