Tag: phantom writing

The Writing Moment

I like to write everyday. I enjoy writing fiction novels. It’s not just a goal for me; writing fiction every day is my center pole.

Sometimes I can’t do it, and the start of July was one of those times when life sabotage my efforts. First were dental appointments on July 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and a day of baking on July 3rd in preparation for July 4th, and then the holiday itself. July 5th was my birthday, so my writing was limited. A medical emergency stole my time and attention on July 6th. I swore to get back to it all on July 7th.

But when I say that I wasn’t writing, I mean that I wasn’t comfortably settling in a chair at a keyboard with a jug of coffee at hand. I kept writing in my head during the hours of driving, baking, sitting at the dentist, being social when I was supposed to be conversing with others, watching parades, attempting to sleep, or hanging around the ER waiting for test results.

Writing in my head was so magical and fast. When it came time to find the words and put it together with my coffee fuel, man, that was a different cat. Although I poured through two thousand words a day plus, a lot for me, stringing words together and revisiting and fixing my previous day’s work, I told my wife that it’s only now that I feel like I am finally catching up.

As I once blogged, I dream of a device that can take the scenes and spin into the needed words for me. Although, honestly, I don’t know if that would be nearly as much fun.

I guess, really, what it’s about for me is exploring the idea, seeing the story and hearing it, and then finding the words for others. May it always be so.

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Monday’s Wandering Thought

A customer was ahead of him in the coffee shop. As he waited for his turn, he began writing in his head. Phantom writing, some call it. The main character had apparently awakened and had a lot to say about who he was and what was going on.

“Hi, what can I get for you?” the barista asked.

Panic. Where was he? Oh, yeah, coffee shop. What did he want? Coffee! He stammered out his order and then apologized, explaining, “Sorry, I was off in another world.”

That comment cracked him up.

Wonder if the baristas think him a little odd?

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The Writing Moment

His wife commented on his recent restlessness at night. He’d been watching television until he fell asleep and she wondered why.

“Well, I start writing, editing, and plotting in my head. Once I do that, it takes hours to fall asleep. The TV distracts me from doing that.”

She answered, “I thought you’d fall asleep easily if you’re writing in your head. Daydreaming always makes me fall asleep.”

He responded with a hard stare. “Writing is not daydreaming.”

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The Writing Moment

Waiting to fall asleep, he wrote throughout the night, scribbling in his mind, traversing back and forth over story lines. Now, daylight is here. Time to recall all that he mentally wrote and add it to the manuscript, carving and recurving the previous pieces to make this fit. Daylight has bleached out the night’s confidence that he knew what to do and how to do it.

Even the new book title that arrived as he fell asleep doesn’t seem as perfect as it did then.

But he begins working on it because that’s how it must be.

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A Writing Dream

I fell asleep in bed thinking about a scene. Those thoughts immediately transported me to a dream where I was at a desk, trying to type. I then rose from the desk and walked to the other room to get coffee. A noise distracted me, drawing me down a hall. The hall was considerably darker than the rest of the house, skinning me with edginess. I was questioning who was in there and whether it was safe to go down the hall. I looked for a suitable weapon but went on without anything.

Coming out from the other end of the hall, I was outside. Across the way, I saw three people. Two confronting a third. I took a few steps toward them, then halted with the realization that I was witnessing the scene I’d been writing. I moved closer to them, trying to hear, and then shifted. Suddenly, I was more akin to a camera, focusing on one person, moving in on close-ups, then flashing to another as the conversation bounced around.

At that point, I started awake. After parting my eyelids to anchor myself, I snuggled deeper. Darkness enveloped the bedroom. I was warm under the covers. My trusty sleepfloof, Tucker, drew up and rubbed his head on my exposed hand. I kept lethargically petting him, floating in and out of sleep and the dream, writing in my head, and writing in the dream. When I awoke this morning and remembered that, the sheer level of writing overwhelmed me. I’d completed that scene and go on to three others. The effort spent me, though. Trying to type it up, it all burst in on me. I typed fast, hanging on to words and moments, straining to keep up.

My brain feels overwhelmed. I need more coffee.

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Catch Up

Don’t you hate it when you keep writing in your head, and then sit down to write and discover that you have entire chapters completed in your head that need to be typed out?

Yikes. I like it that the muses are so active and engaged with me. That’s not the kind of thing I want to complain about (even though, yes, I acknowledge that I am whinging about it, right?) because I don’t want to insult them. You know how temperamental the little sweethearts can be. Speaking of which, does anyone have suggestions about what sort of thank you gifts muses like? Is there a protocol? Does Hallmark have a line of cards for muses?

Got my coffee and ass in chair. Time to type like crazy and try to catch up with the muses.

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