I hope you all had a happy Easter break. Now that the excitement is over (even if the chocolate eggs haven’t all been eaten yet) I thought I’d share with you my musing on what it means to be a writer, along with the weird lives that writers lead. Being an author is a strange way to live. For most of the day you become someone else living in a different life, maybe even in a different country (or world) that is more real to you than where you really are. And when it’s time to lay down your pen, or close down your computer, you are confronted by a reality that seems completely unreal. Somehow you have to negotiate your way ‘back home’. I liken it to jet lag as it can be completely disorientating. Sometimes I feel giddy and sick, as though I have been magically teleported through centuries and across oceans, depending on whether I’m writing medieval crime (the Janna Chronicles), Australian history (Ghost Boy and A Ring Through Time) or Arthurian fantasy (my Shalott trilogy plus I, Morgana and The Once and Future Camelot.) Over time I have become a medieval healer on the run from a vindictive lord; an unhappy ghost or two, a time traveller through Camelot and even the ‘wicked witch’ of Arthurian legend, the great Morgan le Fay – all of whom have been great fun and enormously interesting to write. I suspect that my books wouldn’t work without that intense experience of becoming my characters and living their lives, but I’d be interested to hear of other authors’ experience of this. Any tips and tricks to avoid ‘jet lag’ would also be welcome!
So true Flick – the transition between one world and another. I always hate having to come back to earth to cook dinner for example. I get quite resentful of family needs taking me away from my world ‘out there’. Although I have been known to undertake critically important tasks such as emptying the recycle bin days before garbage night or sorting out the wire coat hangers in my closet rather than tackle the keyboard when my mind is not in writing gear. It is a fine line – nothing else like it that i know.
But I think going out of the room and closing the door on your writing space lets you return to the present in the physical sense at least, but you cannot stop the mind wandering afar. It is like living a duel life being in one place with your body and letting your unconscious work out the next steps the the story.
thanks for posting this – always love your blogs
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Di. I have to say my nadir is when I start cleaning toilets – then I know I’m REALLY in trouble on the writing front! I shall try a firm closing of the door (I usually leave it open when I exit) and hope that works. Still – there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing so I guess ‘jet lag’ is a small price to pay for doing something you love.