Only A Writer Could Understand

So this is something I face in school a lot, and I do mean a lot and I think only a fellow writer could understand because I've tried to explain to nonwriters and they just don't seem to get it.

To start off I must add that this gets worse when I've neglected to write for an extended period of time (like an hour, jk, like two days or more), and it also occurs the most in Chemistry. But let me tell you what it is, if you haven't already guessed.

I actually don't even know if I can word this correctly.

I narrate in my end.

More often than not its Ellis Island that I'm narrating, and I'm really there. My Chemistry teacher says I go off to another world, and today he actually asked me where I go during his class. And I thought about how I would explain that I'm writing in my head and I didn't know how to so I said New York because that's where Ellis Island takes place.

My Chemistry teacher didn't understand at first, coincidentally I live in an area of New Jersey that's about 20 minutes outside the city without traffic. So I guess he thought I literally felt like I was in New York or something. Either way, he then asked me what I was doing, and my first instinct was to say following my characters around, but I'm still uncomfortable with sharing all the great details of me being a writer. I had responded I'm with Ellis. Ironically my chemistry teacher said oh, doesn't she have an island named after her? Which I thought was funny.

But the moral of my story is that no one really gets why I'm always zoning out, I suppose they think I have ADD or something, but I don't, and I don't consider it 'zoning out'. I'm present in the class and I hear what's being said but my mind is with my characters. I think it happens more with stories that have really become real to me.

Now that I think about there's a distinct difference between how I think about my old and new stories. For a story like Ellis Island that I've been writing for a year it more or less consumes me during the days (again especially when it's been a while since I've written it) but for something new that I'm writing I have the conscious choice of whether I'm going to think about it or not. I don't know if that makes sense.

Like for Ellis Island and my older stories I'll be in class and have to play scenes in my head because they're there, my characters, and they're begging to be played with. But for newer stories where I'm not really attached to the stories, I can choose to think about the plot and scenes I want to write.

I just wanted to share this with you guys because it is something to happens to me a lot, and I think it may happen to others too, I don't know, maybe I'm crazy, or ADD or something.

It's unfortunate I won't be able to write tonight but I have to go to bed, I'm so tired and this days been long. In better news my volleyball team won our game today, and we're qualifying for states! I'm so happy, even though every time I went up to hit today there was this tall tall girl (everyone's tall to my 5'2 frame) there trying to block me, but I SHOWED HER.

Okay, night guys. :0
October 13th, 2012 at 05:19am