With all the technology that exists today, why, oh why, hasn’t a 16-year-old tech whiz come up with a way to record our thoughts as we fall asleep each night? I would hand my money over in a heartbeat. I’d pay yesterday. I’d take a second mortgage on my house to cover payments.

And so would every writer I know.

Lying in bed seems to be when my thoughts run free. It’s like someone has turned on a faucet and decided to let the ideas flow. Words that eluded me all day as I sat in front of an open laptop suddenly gush forward, ready to be released. And I struggle to remember them come the morning.

Oh, I know what you’re going to say.  “Keep a notepad by your bed and write these things down, silly.”

Okay, Karen. Let me just get a few things straight.

1. When I go to bed, it takes me forever to fall asleep to begin with. WHY WOULD I DISTURB THAT TO WAKE MYSELF UP AND WRITE SOMETHING DOWN?
2. Writing something requires light. I am not about to turn on the light when I am finally adjusted to the dark.
3. If I wake myself up to write something, I must now reinitiate the process of trying to sleep all over again. It will be 2 a.m. before I get any semblance of sleep. If I’m lucky.
4. My handwriting sucks even with light. Supposing I tried to forgo the light, I can’t imagine trying to read that chicken-scratch in the morning if I wrote it in the dark.
5. Also, I sleep in the same room & the same bed as another person. Can you imagine how thrilled he’d be if I sat up to write down every random musing?

So yes, I would pay money hand over fist to the first person to invent a machine that somehow translates my nighttime musings into actual words on a screen. Come on, already, geniuses! Someone give me a hand and figure this out.