The perils of sharing a brain...
... with people who don't exist.
On one level I've been sharing a brain with fictional people for quite some time now and I shouldn't be surprised when they use it without my permission. I can agree that technically they're aspects of my brain, but they *feel* like they're quite separate. This is not the same as Dissociative Identity Disorder, it's just being a writer who writes as I write.
There is sometimes the aspect of explaining that to people, which is tricky if they're, say, psychiatrists. (Those stupid box-ticky forms you have to fill in asking whether you ever have thoughts that feel like they come from outside of you - yes, I do, but a) that doesn't mean I think they *are* coming from outside and b) the elves and eunuchs and Andorians aren't telling me to kill bunnies or set things on fire, they're just using me as a vehicle to share their melodrama, so they're probably nothing to worry about.)
Other people just find it funny when you answer something and are clearly using someone else's brain to do so. :D
Ultimately, though, it is scary as all hells when they *stop* talking - I'm used to their company. The echoing silence when it's just me in here is deeply unpleasant.
But sometimes, much as it pains me to admit I have anything in common with Laurell K Hamilton, they do seem to act without me. Specifically, they *shop* without me.
I do, admittedly, buy things online while I'm sleep-deprived, in pain or otherwise in an altered state of consciousness. I have been going through a phase of nice fountain pens and proper ink and notebooks rather than shitty blotchy biros on cheap paper.
I do, in fact, buy things for fictional characters sometimes. Not because I plan to *give* them the things, but to use as part of acquiring the required frame of mind for whatever I'm trying to write.
On the other hand, I usually *remember that I've done so*.
The postie today delivered a stack of packages for me and I was a little surprised because I was only expecting one or two items. Then I remembered that while browsing pens, I did start matching them with characters and I might've actually bought them, I don't remember. (ME brainfarts - I have no short-term memory whatsoever.)
Except while I remember picking one out for Gil-galad, what I received is different, because sodding Elrohir hijacked my brain while I wasn't looking and bought what has to be the nanciest pen a pen can be, without actually being pink, for him instead. It's blue and gold and shiny and tacky as hell. And he even bought some ink. It's violet. It sodding well *smells like violets*.
Because Elrohir is a total bitch, and now I have this nancy sodding pen and floral ink. (And it's real floral, not chemical stuff that would make me ill - apparently I have survival instincts even while practically undead.)
I *also* have the pen I chose, which is heavy and quietly stylish dark blue leather-feel with a subtle band of silver leaves. Which takes ordinary blue ink.
::sigh::
Sometimes it feels like trying to herd millennia-old toddlers.
Also, all of this is a way of avoiding being pissed off with the universe because Ryan Dunn is dead, thus depriving me of any more mindless entertainment in the form of Jackass, which has to be the most mindless form of entertainment that is humanly possible.
Now if you'll all excuse me, I'm going back to my quest to find ink in Andorian blue. It's somewhere between cobalt and bleu pervenche and it must exist *somewhere*.
On one level I've been sharing a brain with fictional people for quite some time now and I shouldn't be surprised when they use it without my permission. I can agree that technically they're aspects of my brain, but they *feel* like they're quite separate. This is not the same as Dissociative Identity Disorder, it's just being a writer who writes as I write.
There is sometimes the aspect of explaining that to people, which is tricky if they're, say, psychiatrists. (Those stupid box-ticky forms you have to fill in asking whether you ever have thoughts that feel like they come from outside of you - yes, I do, but a) that doesn't mean I think they *are* coming from outside and b) the elves and eunuchs and Andorians aren't telling me to kill bunnies or set things on fire, they're just using me as a vehicle to share their melodrama, so they're probably nothing to worry about.)
Other people just find it funny when you answer something and are clearly using someone else's brain to do so. :D
Ultimately, though, it is scary as all hells when they *stop* talking - I'm used to their company. The echoing silence when it's just me in here is deeply unpleasant.
But sometimes, much as it pains me to admit I have anything in common with Laurell K Hamilton, they do seem to act without me. Specifically, they *shop* without me.
I do, admittedly, buy things online while I'm sleep-deprived, in pain or otherwise in an altered state of consciousness. I have been going through a phase of nice fountain pens and proper ink and notebooks rather than shitty blotchy biros on cheap paper.
I do, in fact, buy things for fictional characters sometimes. Not because I plan to *give* them the things, but to use as part of acquiring the required frame of mind for whatever I'm trying to write.
On the other hand, I usually *remember that I've done so*.
The postie today delivered a stack of packages for me and I was a little surprised because I was only expecting one or two items. Then I remembered that while browsing pens, I did start matching them with characters and I might've actually bought them, I don't remember. (ME brainfarts - I have no short-term memory whatsoever.)
Except while I remember picking one out for Gil-galad, what I received is different, because sodding Elrohir hijacked my brain while I wasn't looking and bought what has to be the nanciest pen a pen can be, without actually being pink, for him instead. It's blue and gold and shiny and tacky as hell. And he even bought some ink. It's violet. It sodding well *smells like violets*.
Because Elrohir is a total bitch, and now I have this nancy sodding pen and floral ink. (And it's real floral, not chemical stuff that would make me ill - apparently I have survival instincts even while practically undead.)
I *also* have the pen I chose, which is heavy and quietly stylish dark blue leather-feel with a subtle band of silver leaves. Which takes ordinary blue ink.
::sigh::
Sometimes it feels like trying to herd millennia-old toddlers.
Also, all of this is a way of avoiding being pissed off with the universe because Ryan Dunn is dead, thus depriving me of any more mindless entertainment in the form of Jackass, which has to be the most mindless form of entertainment that is humanly possible.
Now if you'll all excuse me, I'm going back to my quest to find ink in Andorian blue. It's somewhere between cobalt and bleu pervenche and it must exist *somewhere*.