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Dec. 18th, 2005 11:39 pmYawn. Bedtime soon.
Spent the better part of the weekend goofing off, playing Diablo 2, and helping a friend write a story. I got absolutely nothing done on the novel I was supposed to have off Monday, which doesn't surprise me in the least. The closer I get to actually submitting something, to having everything done and ready to go, the more excuses I find to avoid finishing it. It's a cowardly thing to do, but there it is. I really do sometimes need a swift kick in the ass.
On the other hand, with the random attacks of PMS reactions this weekend, maybe it's better that I didn't work on it. I'd've wound up bursting into tears because I couldn't word a sentence quite right instead of just scrapping the paragraph and rewriting it to suit what I meant.
A few weeks ago there was a CSI episode where the murder was committed by a man suffering from hypergraphia. A really extreme case of hypergraphia. He wound up writing all over the corpse, which, if I find a corpse or create one in whatever circumstances, I kind of hope I don't do. I have bad flashbacks to The Pillow Book. But then something struck me when he was in interrogation and writing on the notepad, 'he plagarized me' 'he plagarized me' over and over and over again. And I caught myself thinking, gah, I hope I never get that bad.
Hypergraphia. It's a bitch. I don't know if it's what makes me such a good writer but I'm fairly sure it's what makes me such a prolific writer. I can't help it. Well, I'm sure I could. With medication. That I'd never willingly take. Not because I enjoy being mildly hypergraphic but because I hate mood altering drugs with a fury. I dont' believe I need them. I won't listen to most shrinks who'd prescribe them for me. At least, no one's shown me compelling evidence that I need anything stronger than the estrogen in low-dose birth control pills.
But. Hypergraphia. I have it. Mildly. I'm fairly certain a couple of the rest of us do, us writers. But it was interesting, considering it's just a term I'd stumbled on maybe a year ago. Maybe less. I'm not sure I understood it then. I'm not sure people understand it now. But there was something about the way it was depicted that clarified it for me. Actually it made me re-examine my self-diagnosis. Did I really have it? And then I looked at my behavior.
Yes. Yes I do.
I really do have to write. There's a story I'm certain I've told many times about starving to buy pencils and paper. It's true. I have more notebooks and more pens than I need. Every time I go into a grocery store I find myself thinking I need to buy more. I write weird things down. I have notebooks with to-do lists, as though it changes from one hour to the next. It's worst when I'm at work and I'm bored. I write down song lyrics. To-do lists. Bits of dialogue. Names. Stupid ideas that should never see the light of day. Not so stupid ideas to keep later. Numbers. Words. It doesn't matter. Whatever.
It's a compulsion. I'm not sure if it falls under the mysterious category of OCD, but it's a compulsive behavior. And it's kind of weird to think of it as such when I've gone 23, 24 years without doing so.
I doubt it's what makes me a good writer, but it probably helps. Not so much that it makes me a good writer in terms of quality, but I write everything down. Good or bad. It gives me a greater pool of words from which to cull the good ones. I write down every damn idea that comes into my head. Maybe not every idea will see print, but I get down most of them. Which means that, as a friend of mine once said, if I write 10,000 words a day and only 10% of it is good, then that's 1,000 good words. And in a little over three months I have a good, full length novel.
Hypergraphia. It's a weird word for a disorder. Mental? Emotional? Neurological? I've no idea. But it's kind of nifty. I have hypergraphia. Whee, hello! Look at me. Case in point, here I am rambling when I should be getting to bed. Essentially repeating the same thing over and over again because I have this need to put words down. Somewhere. Maybe not on paper, but somewhere.
Anyway. Hypergraphia, as I've said before (and again, case in point! Quod et demonstratum) is not going to make me a good writer. Sitting my ass down in front of my laptop and getting those last 25 pages done and getting them good, then finishing the synopsis and touching up the last few edits on the query letter and sending it out, that's going to make me a good writer. And then finishing the edits on the other two novels, sending those out, getting rejection letters and doing it all over again until I do it right. That's what will make me a good writer. Not letting my own fears get the best of me. I can do this. I'm good enoug, I'm smart enough, andgoddammit doggonit, people like me.
Plus, I'm going to frikkin' Maui. So I better have something to show when I get there.
Persistance. Patience. Practice, practice, practice. It would have gotten me to Carnegie Hall if I'd stayed a dancer. But now it's what's going to make me a good writer.
Spent the better part of the weekend goofing off, playing Diablo 2, and helping a friend write a story. I got absolutely nothing done on the novel I was supposed to have off Monday, which doesn't surprise me in the least. The closer I get to actually submitting something, to having everything done and ready to go, the more excuses I find to avoid finishing it. It's a cowardly thing to do, but there it is. I really do sometimes need a swift kick in the ass.
On the other hand, with the random attacks of PMS reactions this weekend, maybe it's better that I didn't work on it. I'd've wound up bursting into tears because I couldn't word a sentence quite right instead of just scrapping the paragraph and rewriting it to suit what I meant.
A few weeks ago there was a CSI episode where the murder was committed by a man suffering from hypergraphia. A really extreme case of hypergraphia. He wound up writing all over the corpse, which, if I find a corpse or create one in whatever circumstances, I kind of hope I don't do. I have bad flashbacks to The Pillow Book. But then something struck me when he was in interrogation and writing on the notepad, 'he plagarized me' 'he plagarized me' over and over and over again. And I caught myself thinking, gah, I hope I never get that bad.
Hypergraphia. It's a bitch. I don't know if it's what makes me such a good writer but I'm fairly sure it's what makes me such a prolific writer. I can't help it. Well, I'm sure I could. With medication. That I'd never willingly take. Not because I enjoy being mildly hypergraphic but because I hate mood altering drugs with a fury. I dont' believe I need them. I won't listen to most shrinks who'd prescribe them for me. At least, no one's shown me compelling evidence that I need anything stronger than the estrogen in low-dose birth control pills.
But. Hypergraphia. I have it. Mildly. I'm fairly certain a couple of the rest of us do, us writers. But it was interesting, considering it's just a term I'd stumbled on maybe a year ago. Maybe less. I'm not sure I understood it then. I'm not sure people understand it now. But there was something about the way it was depicted that clarified it for me. Actually it made me re-examine my self-diagnosis. Did I really have it? And then I looked at my behavior.
Yes. Yes I do.
I really do have to write. There's a story I'm certain I've told many times about starving to buy pencils and paper. It's true. I have more notebooks and more pens than I need. Every time I go into a grocery store I find myself thinking I need to buy more. I write weird things down. I have notebooks with to-do lists, as though it changes from one hour to the next. It's worst when I'm at work and I'm bored. I write down song lyrics. To-do lists. Bits of dialogue. Names. Stupid ideas that should never see the light of day. Not so stupid ideas to keep later. Numbers. Words. It doesn't matter. Whatever.
It's a compulsion. I'm not sure if it falls under the mysterious category of OCD, but it's a compulsive behavior. And it's kind of weird to think of it as such when I've gone 23, 24 years without doing so.
I doubt it's what makes me a good writer, but it probably helps. Not so much that it makes me a good writer in terms of quality, but I write everything down. Good or bad. It gives me a greater pool of words from which to cull the good ones. I write down every damn idea that comes into my head. Maybe not every idea will see print, but I get down most of them. Which means that, as a friend of mine once said, if I write 10,000 words a day and only 10% of it is good, then that's 1,000 good words. And in a little over three months I have a good, full length novel.
Hypergraphia. It's a weird word for a disorder. Mental? Emotional? Neurological? I've no idea. But it's kind of nifty. I have hypergraphia. Whee, hello! Look at me. Case in point, here I am rambling when I should be getting to bed. Essentially repeating the same thing over and over again because I have this need to put words down. Somewhere. Maybe not on paper, but somewhere.
Anyway. Hypergraphia, as I've said before (and again, case in point! Quod et demonstratum) is not going to make me a good writer. Sitting my ass down in front of my laptop and getting those last 25 pages done and getting them good, then finishing the synopsis and touching up the last few edits on the query letter and sending it out, that's going to make me a good writer. And then finishing the edits on the other two novels, sending those out, getting rejection letters and doing it all over again until I do it right. That's what will make me a good writer. Not letting my own fears get the best of me. I can do this. I'm good enoug, I'm smart enough, and
Plus, I'm going to frikkin' Maui. So I better have something to show when I get there.
Persistance. Patience. Practice, practice, practice. It would have gotten me to Carnegie Hall if I'd stayed a dancer. But now it's what's going to make me a good writer.
