100 Things Challenge (#1): A Chrysalis Is a Solitary Place (or How a Writer Is Born)

[dawn_felagund]

I've decided to take the 100 Things challenge. (Just what I need! Something else to add to my to-do list! Luckily I have forever to finish it, which those of you waiting for me to finish things can all attest is about how long it usually takes.)

Comments

[hhimring]

Thank you for sharing this!
One hundred posts about writing?
It will be very interesting to see where you go with this project.

[dreamflower02]

*nods* I recognize a lot of me in your post, if not all of it.

And yes, it's quite likely that social solitude contributed a great deal to my own interest in reading, writing and stories...

Really great food for thought!

I'm glad you did this. It gave me the momentum to do it too.

[pandemonium_213]

When I walk in the woods or stand on the edge of the sea; when I allow my thoughts to turn inside out--only then do the muses come, as though they were frightened away long ago from humankind.

Heh. My muse is right there yammering in my head when I drive by the Stata Center on the MIT campus or gaze at the Boston skyline while inching along in traffic on the Mass Ave bridge. Mine is right there in the hustle and bustle of humankind

[myaru]

I also used to assume everyone had stories (and worlds, and characters) in their heads. Then one day very recently, when talking to my mother about my last bout of insomnia, she sat down with me and said that if I ever needed to relax myself to sleep, I could immerse myself in a meditation exercise. That exercise turned out to be exactly what I do every time I want to write a story scene - or just think of one, which I do all the time. What is, for her, a whole exercise in centering oneself, is for me a reflex

[dawn_felagund]

Fear Street! That's a blast from the past! I think I read every one of them up to a certain point. I loved those.

It's interesting that your approach to fiction is world-based. I ramble on in another of these 100 Things posts about plot- versus character-based approaches. Now there's a third that I hadn't even considered! (It shows how much I know beyond what goes on in my own headspace. :^P)

I had insomnia for many years because of making up stories in my head. I eventually realized that if I wrote them down, then the insomnia went away. I think that was probably when I realized that being a writer was a significant part of my identity.

she seems very interested in writing something about her experiences, but it doesn't seem to occur to her to make things or people up for it.

Whereas I don't really prefer to write about myself at all, except in this journal, of course. Even when I'm wrangling with stuff in life, it sometimes helps to assign the same or similar problem to someone fictional and let them figure it out!

[myaru]

Ahahahah, true, insomnia can definitely arise from working through stories in your head! In fact, that's my problem half the time. The other half of the time I'm just thinking too much about unpleasant things, and I don't seem to know how to stop that. At least thinking through a story can eventually lull me to sleep because it's pleasant.

Whereas I don't really prefer to write about myself at all, except in this journalSame here. I usually don't achieve catharsis of any kind through writing about my problems in fiction (LJ is another ballgame!), but even if I did, I think it'd bore me to write about myself. I see myself every day, after all. Writing about someone with different limits seems more interesting to me