I don't know how other people's heads work but inside mine I'm having a perpetual conversation with myself. So, obviously, I don't think in images, I think in words. (I'd be interested, incidentally, to hear how other people's brains work). When I get really excited about an idea the conversation becomes extremely animated and sometime, especially when I'm driving, I'll actually start talking to myself out loud. I guess this is a worrying sign.
Worse still, if what I'm saying to myself is funny, I'll even burst out laughing, which can lead to some embarrassing situations as you can imagine.
There are though, some downsides to this unending internal dialogue. Like when I wake up at night and find I'm shouting at myself inside my head and the noise is deafening and I can't get back to sleep. At times like that the conversation can go on for hours.
Since I started blogging events inside my head have taken a turn for the worse. When I was a young man the conversation was mostly about girls and the the things I'd like to do to them. As I got older and began developing businesses for a living the chat with myself was dominated by the various ways in which I might become rich and how I could spend all the money I was going to make.
Nowadays - since I started blogging - I find myself writing - and endlessly re-writing - countless numbers of blog posts inside my head. Best time, as I've said before on this blog, is in the morning, especially in the shower. Then the words - and the ideas - really flow. The trouble is they don't stop flowing. By the time I've had my breakfast and dealt with my business e-mail the thoughts and ideas that sounded so original - and, if I'm lucky, amusing - a couple of hours earlier now sound stale and dull and hackneyed. No worth posting in fact. So I don't.
As a result of this self-censorship, of the thousands of posts I've composed in my head since I started blogging only a very tiny percentage ever see the light of day. I guess you could argue that's a good thing. Strict quality control and all that. But I'm not sure that's right. A blog, if it's about anything, should be a true reflection of the person writing it. Not some bland, carefully manicured version of a guy's mind that has been heavily censored by the thought police, sanitised by the spin doctors.
I guess if I ever want to make a success of blogging I'll just have to order my priorities properly and put off real work until later in the day. Or maybe even the day after.
I can so relate to this, Pundy.
ReplyDeleteIt used to be that my current book was my major preoccupation. Now it's the blog ... I've even taken it a stage further. I scribble down blog posts on scraps of paper as they come to mind. (That's how I used to be with 'real' writing.) Even so, there's still only a fraction that make it to cyberspace ... either because the moment passes, or other things come up, or there simply isn't time ...
"What does he mean, he talks to himself all day long - is he mad?"
ReplyDelete"Yes, quite mad, but now he has put it into a blogpost and brought it out into the open"
"Do you think we should own up then?"
"Well, we could, but then he would would think we are mad too."
"Oh yes, right. Shall we tell him about our blogging methods and our car giggling then?"
"Don't be stupid. Do you think he'd actually believe us?"
"Well he might, because he obviously hasn't worked out the true potential of internal conversation."
"Oh go on then, tell him about the day books with the thousands of random sentences in them, but don't mention the waking up in the night and writing in the dark."
"No, right again, even we think that is completely mental, don't we?"
My blog became a diary of sorts, Pundy, to everything else.
ReplyDeleteYou were talking about writing ideas in the head...
Mine is mostly in words for stories.
But with the play, it's all pictures. Because of the dialogue.
I find myself anxiously picturing the facial expressions of the woman, the man, the man, the woman again, the swift movement, the tripping, the falling...
I circle the room, acting out the conversation.
It's terribly embarassing, yes! :-)