On character empathy, and writing in attics
Fri 2003-11-07 06:59:37 (in context)
- 3,130 words (if poetry, lines) long
- 0.00 hrs. revised
My character is avoiding a phone call right now. Accordingly, I am avoiding writing about it.
My word count is depressing me. 3,130 is not quite the total recommended for the end of Day Two - and here it is November 7th! I hope to catch up this weekend. Heck, I hope to catch up on a lot of things this weekend: studying for my pilot license exam, inputting data for Little Bull Creations's current client, balancing up the household accounts about a week late...
See what I mean? A butt-load of crap to do!
But last night I went to my Magic Secret Hideyhole to write... and it worked. Granted, I only got about 200 words written, and a mere 50 or so of them were actually after the end of the previous session's output - but that was only because I was tired. It felt good. Writing in the dark, in a place only I can go - it felt good.
I've always loved attic spaces. It's something I'll probably never outgrow: the otherworld privacy, the dark place that brings Let's Pretend just one step closer to reality, the place that is not a place in a time outside of time... And the attic was always forbidden to me as a child, for fear I'd impale myself on a roof nail or clumsily crush a family treasure. That sense of taboo has not lessened as I have gotten older. At 27 I still feel like I'm tresspassing, and it adds to the attraction.
Maybe my love of early mornings is related. Both attics and the pre-dawn hours feel intensely private - places and times that belong to only me. And in those space/times I can get a lot of gloriously selfish work done.
So if I don't get around to writing that phone call beforehand, I'm sure I can get it written tonight in my Magic Secret Hideyhole. As Stephen King says, we all need a place on which we can close the door, in which we can go privately insane.
(Well, maybe he didn't put it exactly that way.)