It's a Writer Thing Pt. 1: A Different Kind of Sane

Let's start with something simple. Before I begin, you must know this.

I am a writer. And most of my friends and my family are non-writers.

Simple, yes? Some of you are probably wondering what this has to do with anything worth blogging on. Anyone who is a writer or who knows a devoted writer well, however, should understand where I am coming from.

By society's standards, a lot of writers are not sane. We hear voices in our heads, have conversations with people who are not real, and we have tendencies to talk about places that don't exist and things that have never happened. And because of this, many people feel we are not right in the head.

By writers' standars, however, this is perfectly normal. Have you ever read a fictional novel and marveled at how real the characters seem? Have you ever been able to picture the setting so clearly that you had to look it up to see if it was a real place that the author had actually been to? Have you ever stumbled across a novel that kept you absolutely entranced from first page to last?

It takes a writer to do that. The characters seem real because to the author, they ARE real. The places that are fictional DO exist, and are clearly seen in the mind's eye of the author. And when a book keeps pulling you back in...it is often the case that the writer was just as entranced while writing it.

There is a different kind of sanity for writers. And many people don't understand this. I myelf have often found a story writing itself, merely using me as a channel to put the words on the page. The characters guide me, and I see their world through their eyes, I never know what is coming next, and I am kept in suspense all the while I am recording their tales.

A lot people simply cannot wrap their minds around this concept. As a writer, the events ARE real, the characters truly ARE living through the chaos, and I worry for them as a mother worries for her children. When a character is hurt, I feel their pain and the pain of not being able to do anything to help, because they are caught up in the flow of the inevitable. When someone dies, I mourn for them as if they were a close friend. And when there is a victory, of any kind, I celebrate alongside the victors. They are as real to me as my family is.

But this does not make me crazy. I am still capable of distinguishing 'reality' from 'fantasy.' I do not get the two confused, no matter how prone I am to rambling about what this character did and the relationship between that character and the other to anyone who will listen for five minutes. Many of my non-writer friends have come to realize that my mind makes it all real for me, and they do not have a problem with it.
Others have distanced themselves because they simply cannot understand.

And my friends who are also fellow writers...we've scared many a passerby and classmate with our conversations.

To sum it all up, many writers consistently find themselves being shunned and misunderstood, and a feeling of isolation takes hold. And many non-writers find themselves unsure of their friend's sanity.

In reality, though, we're all perfectly sane. It's just a different kind of sane, where other realities exist for us alongside our own. It's a writer thing.

Bookmark/Search this post with:

 •    •    •    •    •    •    •