No Vacancy

It's always been a curious thing to me as to why authors seem to be so eccentric. It seems like some of my most beloved story tellers have some little glitch in their brain that makes them absolutely brilliant writers, but just odd enough to be afraid to have tea with them. After venturing the last few months to write my first book I have a new appreciation for these oddities. The mental change that has come from attempting a project such as this has been a bit shocking and quite unsettling at times. I took the advice of multiple successful authors and have been treating my characters as if they are real people.

Now, this has been beneficial and detrimental in many ways. The benefits of it are that my characters are almost tangible now, they have developed their own personalities, quirks and physical characteristics. They story is coming to a head and they keep me company when I am bored silly. The downside of having made these people so real is that, unfortunately, they all live in my head. I am starting to truly sympathize with people who have multiple personality disorder. Having that many voices talking in your head at one time is a bit disturbing. I had also read that it helps with dialog if you have the characters converse in your head. So now not only am I hearing voices, but I also feel like I am constantly eavesdropping on my characters.

Probably one of the most truly embarrassing things that has developed from this is my answering my characters out loud. After about two hours of character and plot development occurring in my brain, occasionally a conversation will boil over out of my brain and a random statement will escape my mouth. There is nothing more embarrassing than when your sitting in the living room on the computer in complete silence and then blurt out, "No, that's stupid, why would you do that?" and have your husband look at you as if you might be having an episode.

The amount of information that has been traveling through my brain and being processed is astonishing even to myself. I never thought myself capable of processing so much in one day but my brain seems to be appreciating the exercise and enjoying the challenge. I'm sure my sanity is questionable to anyone who has witnessed one of my "meeting" in which my facial expressions would probably lead anyone watching to believe I was certifiably crazy.

One of the other positive sides of this is that my house is getting cleaner and cleaner. I find that one of the best ways to work out any issues with the story is to start cleaning something. The vigorous action of scrubbing or sorting or some other kind of cleaning method does something to the chemicals in the brain and releases a sort of magical creativity and organization. Any anxiety that is occurring because of the overwhelming amounts of ideas being processed is entirely curable by housework.

When I set out to write this book I never expected to have occupants in my head or to have conversations with imaginary people until it's completion. I've never attempted a creative process such as this and while my brain is a bit crowded at the moment I also find the company fascinating.