Friday, February 09, 2007

Can you get high from writing?

Yesterday morning, I woke up with the usual remnants of dreams floating in my head as I scratched my ass and headed to the shower. While I was soaping up, it started to dawn on my that, while these were the usual dream left-overs, I should do something with them.

As I was enduring my usual 45 minute commute, I realized that I REALLY should do something with these random thoughts that floated into and out of my head. And by the time I got to my desk, I was determined to write something down. Even if it were just an idea, or a sentence, or even an opening paragraph, I HAD to write something down.

So I sat down and wrote 2,016 words.

And I just finished writing 2,585 words over my lunch hour.

Granted, these are very rough drafts, no quotes for conversations, no italics for personal thoughts, no expounding on visual details. VERY rough drafts.

But it's a start. One the likes of which I've not seen in years. I once wrote a few pages of an idea and kept going until I got to a spot in the plot that I couldn't figure out what to do.

Well, now I think I can include that story in this new one. I just need to get there.

And the odd part is (or good part I guess) I think I can finish this story. I've had a bit of a "secrete twist" floating in my head for a year now and never had a good story to use it with. Well, now I do. I just need to finish the story.

But it keeps growing and changing as I write it. Could this be what "professional" writers experience? Is this a "writer's high?" I've experienced a "runner's high" before when I ran cross country in high school, and this is pretty close. I felt like I could keep on writing for another hour even though time wasn't really a factor. I wrote for an hour, but it only felt like 15 or 20 minutes.

Did I lose all perspective of reality when I was creating this story? Is this something else writers feel when they're in "the groove?"

Even now, as I'm writing this post, I feel like I could go on and on. But it's the fear that I may loose the reader or lose my flow or get interrupted by the phone or ....... blah blah blah.

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty stoked so far. I'll try to come in early tomorrow to get some more written. Between now and then, I'll need to decide where the plot is going. Generally speaking of course. Nothing is set in stone so far.

1 comment:

Epheros said...

Yes! Welcome to my world (well, usually).

This "writer's high", as you're calling it, is exactly that feeling you get when you are letting something out of head and capturing it. It is this feeling that normally gets me excited to write.

I've starting getting a certain addiction to it recently in which I now have an urge to write. Like an urge for a cigarette (though I never smoked) or an urge for some chocalate I get the need to have to write it down.

I ended up letting it get a little out of hand though. I would actually just kind of write anything rather than work on certain projects. This does help with understanding how to write better (not talking grammar or structure, just the concept of writing) because it exercises the brain and the connects the functions of sitting at the computer, or at a pen and paper, and do the action of writing.

Keep this up and we'll make you a real writer yet!