The Sound of Silence

There was no school today. My day felt empty as it appears I have grown accustomed to always having somewhere to go and be. I woke up at 8am this morning which is an oddity for me. My earlier class used to be at 10am so I would usually set my alarm for 9am. Sleep is escaping me lately and my dreams are turning horrific for some reason. I am not sure why either. I was able to get a final done and I am sure I aced it so why was I feeling so out of sorts? I found myself in one of my books called All He Ever Wanted by Anita Shreve. I do love her style of writing, it's creative and clustering theme seems to rise and flow with the sea and it's character development is paced just right. I started the book in September, but shelved it as I was trying to concentrate on school for the most part along with writing my novel. The only problem I am having is that I cannot put a face to her characters.

Generally when I read a book, I can picture some one, sometimes an actor or a person I know and assign that image to the character so I can play the book as a movie in my head. I am having trouble doing this for some reason and I know it's not her fault. He book, while a little long, is terrific and it's keeping me enthralled. I keep thinking that writing my novel is in a way tearing at my soul. My sleeplessness is getting progressively worse as I am now having to rely on chemical methods to ensure I sleep a decent amount of hours. Without, I tend to toss almost constantly and when I do sleep, it's for perhaps 10 to 15 minutes at a time. I keep finding myself waking and looking for the clock, even though I do not have anywhere to be. In the event that I do have to wake, I always set my alarm, yet I still find myself waking up and looking at the clock. I am beginning to think that I may purposely start to face the clock away from me at night so that I may not give into temptation.

Through all this, there is no sound. It is eerily quiet and it almost disturbing. I used to love the quiet as it allowed me to read uninterrupted and there are times when I do play my music. In fact when I write, it's very rare that I do not have something playing. In the time I spend on my novel, I usually have artists like The Verve, Katie Melua, Kevin Macleod, Smashing Pumpkins, and of course Olivia Lufkin  playing lightly for me in the background. Still, from time to time, I hear nothing but silence and I find myself sitting and staring off into space.