I worry sometimes that I'm a little insane...
It happens, thus:
First there is a story--sometimes one of my own making, and sometimes it's someone else's that I fall into. It might be a book or a movie or a television show, but in the end it doesn't matter. It takes over my imagination, sets up shop, moves in and starts working. Constantly. It's like a mini army of oompa loompas in there, all of them cranking away in my brain and churning out ideas.
Sometimes those ideas get bigger and bigger and then eventually I'm writing a story.
Lately, my Ideas have been of the epic kind, and they tend to crowd out other things.
Now, in my day to day life I can go around, behaving like a perfectly normal human being and pretending that my brain is not silently spouting words like "Spike!" or "Jareth!" or "Jack!" or (lately) "Hatter!" with astonishing frequency. I can pretend that I'm having a deep and meaningful conversaion with someone and that there isn't a tiny factory in the back of my brain that's silently working away on some unfinished scene.
But then I sit down at my computer, and it all sort of takes over. And because I'm not the kind of person that can create in a vaccuum, and I don't generally like to start posting things until the end is in sight, this puts a terrible burden on my beta readers, who have to deal with me constantly and persistently asking for their opinions on everything I write.
This cannot be healthy.
I have realized that, as a writer, I'm horribly insecure. I worry that I'm not particularly good, I worry that people I respect don't like my work, I worry that I won't finish things that ought to be finished, or that they're just a big mess of nothing. My current WIP in particular has me nearly crushed with insecurity--and the reasons for that are so utterly egotistical that I'm too ashamed to commit them to words. Suffice it to say that over the last few weeks I've been nearly unbearable.
And it makes me feel sorry for my betas, who I love very much, and who have had to put up with this sort of craziness from me for about a year now. I cannot begin to tell them how much it means to me that they have, and I would like to try to be better about it in the future. Because while I might be a little crazy, I probably shouldn't drag them into it with me.
So, to my betas, I apologize, and vow to try harder in the future to not be so utterly obsessive. Because you're my favorite people, and you mean far more to me than the fictional people who live in my head.
First there is a story--sometimes one of my own making, and sometimes it's someone else's that I fall into. It might be a book or a movie or a television show, but in the end it doesn't matter. It takes over my imagination, sets up shop, moves in and starts working. Constantly. It's like a mini army of oompa loompas in there, all of them cranking away in my brain and churning out ideas.
Sometimes those ideas get bigger and bigger and then eventually I'm writing a story.
Lately, my Ideas have been of the epic kind, and they tend to crowd out other things.
Now, in my day to day life I can go around, behaving like a perfectly normal human being and pretending that my brain is not silently spouting words like "Spike!" or "Jareth!" or "Jack!" or (lately) "Hatter!" with astonishing frequency. I can pretend that I'm having a deep and meaningful conversaion with someone and that there isn't a tiny factory in the back of my brain that's silently working away on some unfinished scene.
But then I sit down at my computer, and it all sort of takes over. And because I'm not the kind of person that can create in a vaccuum, and I don't generally like to start posting things until the end is in sight, this puts a terrible burden on my beta readers, who have to deal with me constantly and persistently asking for their opinions on everything I write.
This cannot be healthy.
I have realized that, as a writer, I'm horribly insecure. I worry that I'm not particularly good, I worry that people I respect don't like my work, I worry that I won't finish things that ought to be finished, or that they're just a big mess of nothing. My current WIP in particular has me nearly crushed with insecurity--and the reasons for that are so utterly egotistical that I'm too ashamed to commit them to words. Suffice it to say that over the last few weeks I've been nearly unbearable.
And it makes me feel sorry for my betas, who I love very much, and who have had to put up with this sort of craziness from me for about a year now. I cannot begin to tell them how much it means to me that they have, and I would like to try to be better about it in the future. Because while I might be a little crazy, I probably shouldn't drag them into it with me.
So, to my betas, I apologize, and vow to try harder in the future to not be so utterly obsessive. Because you're my favorite people, and you mean far more to me than the fictional people who live in my head.