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writerly oddities, continued
continuing from yesterday's post:
I think many other writers find themselves in the same place I am now, in conflict with my subconscious. It plans terrible things for my characters, and I have to struggle to reestablish balance. The characters chime in, too, complicating matters. Are all writers of complicated novels vaguely schizophrenic? Is there some other, better term for this splitting of the mind into factions that bicker about imaginary people? Would I have been burned at the stake in the fourteen century? No doubt.
My daughter starts her junior year of high school tomorrow. That seems almost impossible to me, but it's true. For all of her life she's been dealing with a mother who is a little fractured of mind. Once when a clerk in a store asked me the same question three times before I heard her, my daughter, then age four, interceded. Mama's got a sentence in her head and it's got to come out, she explained. The clerk was more alarmed than charmed. I can't remember how I smoothed that one over.
At age three she was so familiar with my creative process and my fictional characters that she came to the conclusion that she had been created in the same process. She asked me, Mama, did you and daddy color me? She knew that something had gone into the process beyond words on the page -- she was a physical being, and those characters I was struggling with never materialized.
Now she's a very good writer, my daughter. When she was a little younger she spent time making up whole fictional families. She gave them names and occupations and phobias and conflicts. Maybe she still does this, I'm not sure.
Is this a matter of conditioning -- has long exposure to my odd writing mind rubbed off on her -- or is it something she inherited, as she inherited her father's long, thin frame and my hair? Wil she outgrow it, or will it take over her life so that when she has young children they have to make excuses for her to total strangers? I don't know what to wish for, and so I hold my breath and watch.
September 6, 2005 11:14 AM
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Comments
I like to think it is a little of both and that she is lucky to have a mom who understands her and helps nurture her creative powers.
Posted by: Bugg at September 7, 2005 11:53 AM
If I were to venture a guess, it would be that nature gave your daughter that creativity while the nurturing of a creative mother helped her better understand and develop it (if she wanted it).
Besides, in my own (unpublished, as yet) writing, characters totally take over when I give myself to the writing. If it's schizophrenia, most (if not all) writers have it--whether they want to admit it or not.
(Hmmm. So this is what it feels like to comment on a blog. It's my first time. Nifty)
Posted by: Lisa at September 7, 2005 07:31 PM
Lisa -- It's a honor to host your first comment. May there be many more.
Bugg -- that's a good nickname. How did you get it?
Posted by: sara at September 7, 2005 09:25 PM