in which a Loop Happens, and I Give Backstory

By Anniforscia
Writing is so weird for me. It's constantly happening to me. My brain is a perpetual narrative, either cataloging something that is happening to me, something that has happened, or something that might happen. Sometimes something that fits into none of those categories.
And I'm walking down the aisle in the grocery store and I'm scanning the shelves, so many colors, and my stomach is a chasm of hunger and my brain is saying, "And I'm walking down the aisle in the grocery store and I'm scanning the shelves, so many colors, and my stomach is a chasm of hunger and my brain is saying..."
And it's odd. Because I'm thinking about what I'm doing, and thinking about writing what I'm thinking, and now what I'm doing is writing what I was thinking, which is, incidentally, also what I'm writing about, and what I was thinking about.

Does that make sense?

The point is, I've come to grips with the narrative thing. In fact, I'm sure it's the case for many writers. I deal with it by taking what I've thought and adding things to it, to describe situations more accurately, more kinetically. This, what I'm writing here, is more like my raw thought transferred to the page.

The one thing my brain covers oh-so thoroughly, the one thing that needs no embellishment, is disaster. Disasters of all kinds fall under the "things that might happen" category of my persistent narrative. Incidentally, they also fall under the "things I never feel the need to write about because they make me shiver in a horrified way" category of my life. I was going to give an example, but the horrified shivering thing just interfered. Suffice it to say that I dislike walking up concrete steps. I'm an awful klutz, I trip a lot, but my good reflexes tend to make up for it. In my head, I trip five times as often, and my reflexes don't exist. I suppose it's interesting to see so many scenarios laid out in my head, but I often wish they could be just a bit more pleasant.
 

1 comment so far.

  1. Evevevev March 30, 2009 at 1:28 PM
    So when I'm alone, I get the narrative in my head, too, albeit slightly differently. I won't think verbally, that is in words, per se, but if I formulate a point that I might ever utter aloud, my brain becomes a broken record, and I say the same phrase to myself over and over, changing a word here or there, until I have a statement that I'd be happy to send past my lips.

    And then there's nobody there, or no context in which to speak it!

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