I know I wrote a post a while ago that touched on this, but it's happening again.
There is seriously a screw loose in my head (well, probably more than one...) that pops up in times of extreme busyness/stress.
When things are piled up so high it's hard to plan out a day, much less a week, my brain decides it's a great time to push everything aside and think about writing.
Is this a strange form of procrastination?
Is it a way to force a mental break?
Or is my brain trying to kill me in a slightly different method?
There are few reasons why I think it might be attempted-suicide-by-brain.
1) It's not just one story. It's all of them, actually. 6 major/full length stories (well, 9 actually, since the 'sort-of-trunked' one was a trilogy). If it was just a single one, I'd be more included to think, "wow, after a good rest/break from that story, I have gained fresh perspective!"
2) It's not just one change, it's many. Thoughts on TRoRS would require me to delete about 1/4-1/3 of the story and go from there. Thoughts on AotD, L&R, and SO would require a complete refocus of each story... too scared to calculate how much re-writing would be required (easily 1/2 of each story)... Thoughts on the trilogy would require rewriting from scratch in a different POV. Thankfully, at only 20-ish-thousand words, the changes to SL would be less... but it's also the one I have the least thoughts on, which means it's the story least worth delving into.
3) I'm still banned from typing. Even just typing out this post has my neck aching, a sharp repetitive stabbing in my rotary cuff, and the fingers of my right hand are starting to hit the wrong keys, or not move at all (due to the shrink-wrapped-fascia tissue in my forearm restricting the tendons that work the fingers).
Yet my brain is full of *ideas* that it wants to get out.
May is going to be an insane month, with the convention and all, so I'm hoping I can mentally sandbag/barricade this tsunami until June 1st.
...we'll see how it goes...
I’ve given up planning days - I make a list and do what can. Good news I was able to file my taxes yesterday. And as a means of escape writing is the best. Speaking of insanity, the post I did for that challenge today – maybe I shouldn’t have
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure which one you mean... the SS blog, or the author one?
DeleteWait.
ReplyDeleteYou mean that isn't normal?!
Aka: oh, yeah. I know this way, way too well :). This entire week has been consumed with sci-fi short stories for prompts and the one novel scene I did over the weekend touched on how 'immortals' deal with PTSD and threw up a dozen plot-bunnies into the Ghoulish world .... I know your pain :)
I am loving those stories... keep posting them!
DeleteOh no! More plot bunnies! ...will Wray get to eat them?
Hm,. I would do that, but it would get beyond silly; it's mostly plot ideas for the third novel in the series (wherein the military kidnap monsters and attempt to weaponize them).
DeleteAlcar!! I sort of deal with ptsd for my devil's agent!! we should compare notes
ReplyDeleteplot bunnies - lol - I lack these critters. Trying to do a short story for something - but not a bunny in sight
Heh. I'd pointed out that it really doesn't happen much in fiction involving immortality, but a friend reminded me that is pretty much the basis of the new Doctor Who stuff. The Ghoulish setting has a basic kind of 'immortal' (in the setting all it means is one doesn't die of old age, illness and the like: one can still be murdered by weapons and the like.) Healers can heal their minds, so they're 'covered' (though mind-wiping yourself to get rid of bad memories is probably not a good idea, long term..) and other magicians can achieve immortality as well. A good chunk of monsters do, so the characters figure that since all monsters began as humans the reason there are no truly long-lived monsters on record is, well, suicide (by cop or one's own hand, essentially).
DeleteThere are a few exceptions, but those tends to be twisted: if you want to live to 'see forever' the only way to achieve it is by putting oneself before everyone else and being an immortal coward, which would have its own problems in the long term. It's definitely a fun problem to explore: not even PTSD, necessarily, just the slow and steady accumulation of loss that would wear anyone down in the end.
...if the healers can wipe their own minds, what happens if they forget how/what they're doing half-way through?
Delete... they enter politics? :)
DeleteThey do have some safeguards at least -- over 60% of the maficians who achieve immortality are healers and they keep detailed records. The bigger problem is what ELSE is lost from the mind if your remove a trauma entirely, aka, the lessons one learns from it. It's highly possible there a good number of very, very naive immortal healers in the setting basically kept in safe houses and not let into the outside world. I doubt the series will really address this since I have no plans for the characters to really be involved with the families of magicians at this level; it's mostly background stuff in my head.
HA! My brain works the same way. If ever it gets overwhelmed with real life things, immediately I want to write. And then when I have an entire free weekend with nothing to do but write, all my brain wants to do is something stupid like watch TV. IRONIC.
ReplyDeleteHaha, yeah, I get that. BUT, at least watching TV can inspire note ideas, right?
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