For the past week, I’ve found myself very easily distracted by the smallest, sometimes craziest of things — the type of car making that awful racket down the road, the smell of a banana three days overripe, the precise date a local department store put out Christmas decorations and supplies. I’ve felt a bit like a puppy:
Oooh! A bunny hopping into the brush! What the heck is it doing in the city? See how it — wait! Look! Kids doing tricks on bicycles! Cool! I wonder if they’ve ever jumped off — what is that crazy racket next door? Gosh, it sounds like someone hammering the wall, or maybe they’re throwing heavy gym bags around, or maybe it’s that dance game on Xbox’s Kinect and they’re jumping up and down and that was so much fun for me and my brother the other night, I wonder what would happen if the jumping caused a 2 liter of pop to spill, or something broke off the table, maybe it was an antique lamp that came from Norway and…
You get my drift.
Here’s the thing, though: Every single detail I am connecting to my story.
It’s as if I can’t turn the volume down on my creative self. Since I reopened the box on this new writing project, everything I observe or do inspires a nonstop brainstorming session. That bunny mentioned above? It moved into a scene for my main character, hiking alone. The kids on bikes? They’re now part of a flashback to my protagonist’s first day of high school. That banging sound I heard broke into several scenes which practically wrote themselves.
It’s not always this easy. Shoot, it’s never this easy, at least for me. And I’m not even convinced that these moments will enter into the larger picture for the story. But I’ve been so caught up in that world, learning my characters and the reasons they act the way they do, discovering molehills and mountains in the potential plot line itself, it feels as though I’m seeing the real world through a split lens.
Last night, I chatted with my dear friend Corey about our respective writing projects. (Corey is an absolutely amazing novelist — check out her blog at http://seecoreywrite.wordpress.com/) When I mentioned my insanity, she replied, “You’re definitely in plotting euphoria. Everyone goes there.”
Woooo-eeee, I hope so. And I hope my creative volume doesn’t turn down any time soon (even if I have people at work waving hands in front of my face and asking if I need to lie down).
So, what happens during your plotting euphoria? Does your creative self demand attention, too? How long does it usually last? And isn’t it kinda glorious? 🙂
Jennifer Voyles 