Sleepwriting

Crissa had never enjoyed writing papers or essays in school. But it seemed that columnist was the only unfilled position in the town. When she went in to get a job interview, the lady who interviewed her barely looked at her resume. On her first day on the job, the editor of the newspaper told her she needed to write an article about the new law on speeding tickets. The whole day she tried writing something interesting, but all she could write was one sentence. She read her only sentence aloud to herself.

"There has been a change in the law about speeding tickets" she read.

All Crissa could think about was how dull, short and boring the sentence was. She fell asleep at her desk thinking how to fix up her failure of an article.

She woke up to find that she had sent the document containing her one boring sentence to the editor. Panicked but not all awake yet, she opened the document she had sent to the editor. Crissa could not believe her eyes when she saw the smartly written, crisp and eye-catching article in the place of her dull one-sentence disaster. Just then, she received an e-mail from the editor. She clicked it open. It read:

Dear Ms. Phillips,

When I read your article, I could not believe how perfect and interesting it was. You made a change in a law as interesting as an alien species being discovered! Keep up the good work Ms.Phillips.

Sincerely,

Mr.Williams

Confused and in awe, Crissa put a video camera by her, so it would record her so when she fell asleep, she would see what happened. the same thing happened, and Crissa got another e-mail from her editor praising her article on the new ice-cream shop opening in town. He said that she was an amazing writer and he was excited to read her next article. Later that morning, Crissa watched the video from the camera that had recorded her the previous night. She was amazed by what she saw. She had been typing the articles in her sleep!

Once Crissa found out she was writing in her sleep, she would write one boring sentence every night. Then she would leave her computer open and fall asleep. Eventually, Crissa went on to write for prestigious magazines and newspapers. She even wrote a series of books. But unlike any other author, she had no idea what her books were about until she read them.