Have you seen The Guardian‘s series called “Insomnia and Me”? In it, Chuck Palahniuk, David Baddiel, Naomi Alderman, and other writers describe their struggles with sleep. Here is an excerpt from Palahniuk’s story.
Insomnia has its upside. The writers Joy Williams and Lewis Hyde describe how an artist must be “broken” to perform an original act of creation. A writer or painter must be knocked back by shock or suffering that stuns his or her rational mind and allows access to inspiration, whether that bold idea comes from some deeply buried detail of psychology or some external daemon muse. Fasting works. Rejection, too. Insomnia works wonderfully.
