My brain and I need a timeout.
You ever start a story, having it already full-born in your head, and you think to yourself, all that I need to do is listen to my brain, and I’ll be okay. Except when you get to the story, when you actually start writing down the words, it turns out that the story is garbage. Its like your brain has put on beer goggles and is desperately trying to feel up any story or idea it sees.
It is convinced that it is infallible, and everything it does is brilliant, deep and insightful.
My brain does that to me all the time. I won’t pretend like we’re part of the same being. It’s clear that we’re not. We fight altogether too often for us to be together. If we were married, we would be separated (though not divorced, because we wouldn’t know what to do with children). My brain keeps writing checks that the rest of me can’t and doesn’t want to keep.
Take for instance today. Before sitting down to this keyboard, I swear I had this great idea for a story that could be both funny, moving and poignant. All of the ingredients are there. I just know they are. I’ve got the equipment ready, the oil is heated, and all I need to do is add some nouns, verbs, adjectives and (God forefend) adverbs and I should be cooking.
But it’s not going like that. I’m freezing up, and when I get anything on the screen, it looks like something my English students would turn in for an assignment. My brain is disgusted.
The rest of me is too.
It is convinced that it is infallible, and everything it does is brilliant, deep and insightful.
My brain does that to me all the time. I won’t pretend like we’re part of the same being. It’s clear that we’re not. We fight altogether too often for us to be together. If we were married, we would be separated (though not divorced, because we wouldn’t know what to do with children). My brain keeps writing checks that the rest of me can’t and doesn’t want to keep.
Take for instance today. Before sitting down to this keyboard, I swear I had this great idea for a story that could be both funny, moving and poignant. All of the ingredients are there. I just know they are. I’ve got the equipment ready, the oil is heated, and all I need to do is add some nouns, verbs, adjectives and (God forefend) adverbs and I should be cooking.
But it’s not going like that. I’m freezing up, and when I get anything on the screen, it looks like something my English students would turn in for an assignment. My brain is disgusted.
The rest of me is too.