Sunday, January 17, 2010

When I Write

My son has been playing this Xbox on line forty eight hour access dealy thingy so I could not write. Him sitting next to me talking to the other players and all the game noise just made it impossible. People think that if you are writing you aren't doing anything same goes for trying to read a book. "Oh! Your just sitting there so let me find you something to do." I can feel the tenseness building in the air. So I write late at night mostly.

I have fought this battle for years, I can't write with a bunch of things going on in the room. For me I have to have peace and quite while the process is going on. It allows me to get into the characters and story as when I get going all the words begin flowing in. Interruptions stop the whole process, making me lose a train of thought. This is why I have always done my writing at night when everyone is asleep. Back in high school we had to write a story for english class. Having no idea what to write about in the beginning I began but it being during the day there were interruptions a plenty. My mother kept calling me from the top of the stairs every few minutes. Where is the cat? Have you done this? Have you done that? Have you seen your brother? Go feed the dog? etc. Then my brother came home, turned up his stereo, then his friends came over making all sorts of racket.
I had to get this paper done but I just couldn't keep the creative juices flowing. People would come in and want to see what I was writing then give their two cents worth. Change this, that sounds to creepy, why don't you have the character do this instead? "Who's story is this anyway?" I'd think to myself.
So I had to find a time to write and that was late at night. The story I started with before all the interruptions fizzled out as I was trying to push it along rather than letting it take off on it's own. I trashed it and began writing about something I knew about thus began the weaving of words and ideas. Slowly at first until it got rolling along picking up speed as it went. All sorts of ideas came flooding in faster than I could get them down on the paper. No computers back then and I could not type fast so it was all hand written. I learned not to worry about typo's or proper grammar or structure as I wrote. Worrying about those things could slow or even stop the magic and train of thought. Just get it down on the paper as it comes and worry about fixing things later.
That first night I stayed up writing until the sun started to come up. My mind got so into the story that I was lost in it like actually being there. Time and reality slipped away from me as words and ideas just kept coming. Good thing my first class was study hall and my second was history in which we watched a film about Hitler I believe it was, well I slept through them both actually.
The story I wrote "Definitely the last ride" was about a couple of runaways, one from a good home in appearance and one kid from a broken home. They stole a motorcycle and hit the road. Though both kids came from different backgrounds and income levels they found that they were not that much different. The wealthy kid had all these nice things but his parents were never about as work took over and controlled their lives. The poor kid only had a few things but his parents were divorced and his mother was not much of a mother. Drinking and whoring around controlled her life and the father had just upped and walked out years ago.
I got an AA++ for that story. The teacher asked if he could keep the story for a bit to show to others. I didn't think about it at the time but later it hit me that the teacher thought I was writing about myself and a real friend. He was concerned but I took some small things and expanded them for fiction. Maybe I was to some degree and the I can see looking back that both the characters in the story were both me. But my imagination took things further and I changed the situations. My mother was no whore and neither my parents were drunks. Though my childhood had two lives, one ripped apart and I was left mostly alone. Then my father remarried to a wonderful woman who was a real mother to me so I was able to go live with them. It was a rocky road at first then got better. So I think my story in school was written with the previous life ingrained deeper than was thought and it came out on paper with imagination woven in.

What did all of this post have to do with writing, don't know but it just came out as I wrote. So the story I'm writing now has some things in it that are being drawn from real life but with imagination added. It is a story of fiction. Does make me wonder about Stephen King though.

3 comments:

Learning to Golf said...

I feel what your saying here about writing. I went to college at 40 and did all of my writing in the wee hours when it was just me, the computer, and a pot of coffee. The words just flow in the freedom of the night like magic and seem to arrange themselves on the paper. I'm not nearly as effective writing when the sun is up.

WooleyBugger said...

See, it isn't just me then. I've read about differnt authors and seems most all either have to find a quiet spot, like a basement space, cottage or the like to write, but for most it's burning the midnight oil as they say.
And coffee these days is certainly a must have.
Thge night time helps tremendously with the thought process.

Mary said...

I write during the day, but never as effectively as in the evening when others are sleeping. I laughed at your post, because my husband always looks over at the laptop and says things like "what are you writing about today", and of course, my train of thought is lost. I can get short articles done when I have distractions, but real writing of stories with characters and plots has to be done in a quiet environment.