Even A Scattered Mind Can Put It All Together

I prefer wide-base coffee cups to the ones that taper to a slim bottom for the simple reason that my movements tend to be quick and the chances of knocking the cup over increases (and with it sitting next my keyboard 99% of the time, I don' t like taking chances). These quick movements are much like the way my brain functions. Type A+++. Too much multitasking has splintered my mind and while that can come in handy, containing my thoughts can be a challenge. My friend calls it "monkey brain," an affliction she has diagnosed herself with. Note to self: Ask her what the heck IS "monkey brain?"

Anyway, back to my fragmented mind. When writing, I know the beginning and end. I know the conflicts my characters will experience, but to go from point A to point B is not a path I find easy to take. It's too organized for me. Throughout the day I think of scenes and character comments and write them down in my notebook. They are hardly in chronological order, but are just things I can see my characters saying and doing. From there I can put it all together like a puzzle. Only then can I get my mind to relax so I can step back and see it as a whole, fill in the gaps, and add depth to everything.

I find it easier to just write, write, write, no matter how it looks on paper. It may or may not make sense, but I just try to get the general idea down. I look at it like regurgitating my thoughts on the page and then when I am done, I'll go back in and clean it up. So often I will stare at my screen and before I know it, an hour has passed without so much as a sentence typed, all because I was trying to get it to sound right or I was searching for the perfect word. What a complete waste of my valuable time. It's much more gratifying to have written pages of scribble for an hour than to walk away not having anything to show for it. The act of writing a story makes you feel like a writer, and when you feel like a writer, you are a writer, plain and simple.