"Pretty well, actually."
"That's good. You working on anything else?"
I cut my eyes at him and think, "No, motherfucker... I'm just hanging out at the computer all day long, typing random shit onto blank pages. I have 481 pages of alphabetic squabble. Would you like to read it?"
"Yes. I've got one completed manuscript I'm currently editing and then three others in various forms of progress," I answered instead.
He shakes his head and laughs before saying, "That's kind of scary, Lori."
"What is?" I ask.
"That you have that much shit in your head."
I laughed, but just kinda looked off, not meeting his eyes. "Dude, you have no idea."
And he doesn't. Most people don't.
I can't speak for all writers because I know some who have the whole outline and formatting the pre-story down to a science. They can't really write without plotting every detail out until the end. Only when they've done that, do they actually start the writing process and begin the character development.
I admit, it's a nicer, neater way to do things. It keeps their brains organized and reminds them to stay on track when it comes to development of scenes, etc. I get it.
I get it, but I can't do it. I've tried. My method of madness, because of all the shit in my head, is to just get it out and get it down. It might take two years to wade through 350 pages of rambling, removing or adding relevant content, tweaking characters or scenes, but for me, it's the only way to work. I don't even know how the story is going to end until suddenly it does. Mentally, as I'm writing, I'm turning pages, just like a reader does, to see where the story goes. The closest comparison I can make in terms of what I do to anything else is by saying I'm constantly ad libbing when it comes to story-lines. I never know from one day to the next the direction whatever I'm writing might take.
Often, my characters are completely developed long before the story is. So it's like having a person living in your brain, who's just kinda hanging out, waiting for you decide what to do with them or decide where you're going to put them. And then you have to decide who to put them with, because you've got this whole other crowd of characters also hanging out, waiting on you to pick them also. It's a little bit like choosing a team for dodgeball. The weakest characters get chosen last or sometimes not at all because you're waiting to see if they'll grow or develop further on down the road, becoming stronger players in their own right.
I've said before that writers are bipolar in nature because of the amount of dialog that runs rampant through our heads, along with the fact that we can actually see the description of the person who's speaking said dialog (hence a character is born). But what happens when, like me, you've got three separate books in the works and a dialog of characters for each one?
I'll tell you what happens. It gets loud and it gets crowded.
Real people wonder why I space out while they're talking... It's not because I don't validate your existence or think what you have to say is important. It's because at the moment you're talking to me, 10 other imaginary people usually are too and they're shouting at me to give them their individuality even down to a tiny birthmark on their foot.
I realize this makes me sound a little crazy, (because I am... you have to be nuts to choose to do this profession full time. Nuts and ok with being poor), but the plain truth is, sometimes the character's voices in my head are way louder than the voice of the person standing directly in front of me. Depending on what the real conversation is, sometimes those fake voices are way more interesting and fun, too.
As always, thank you for reading and venturing a little bit into my head with me. <3
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