It is the curse of those with writer’s minds that we invent possibilities. Alternative realities and back 
stories to all the events in our lives until it can be difficult to tell which is real and which is pure fairy tale. These stories weave in and out of everyday life and fork in both pleasant and unpleasant directions. These stories – these worlds, to the writer, and not just lands of make believe, but they exist. They are flesh and have feelings and emotions and voice and consequence. So how are our friends and family supposed to react when we exercise our nature based on these waking dreams? When we construct our own worlds upon the building blocks of our imagination instead of with the obvious materials they see before them?
This is constant problem. And I am glad to know that it doesn’t just happened to me. With any luck we are just labeled “eccentric”, given a pat on the shoulder and humored a bit. That is what I am hoping for anyway!
The other thing is, and I didn’t realize this until recently, is that those who are driven to write often do it to get something out of their heads. Honestly, I had thought this only applied to me. But, I have found that other too have no choice but to write because if they don’t then that scene or phrase or voice will stay in their heads forever. It will be in their just kicking, screaming, and banging on to the side of the skull. So the writer has to write. Has to get it out. But, and here is the odd part, once it is out the details can be forgotten. And they often are. So when later, a few days or a few years, they are asked about what they wrote, the writer will often stare blankly.
“I wrote what? Where? When?” they will ask quite honestly.
I used to think this was crap, that people couldn’t really forget what they had written. Well, I thought that until it happened to me. I wrote something that I got called on, and I honestly couldn’t remember that I had written it. It was a simple turn of phrase that came to me as I was about to go to sleep one night. It kept poking around inside my head and wouldn’t let me go to sleep, so I got up and wrote it out in a blog post, hit publish, and forgot about it. Literally.
And then, only few days later and a few days ago, it was brought up to me, and I honestly couldn’t remember having said it. Oh, I remembered the post itself and the general thoughts put out, but the actual words and what the meaning could be because of those words escaped me. Had I really used that word? That phrase? I had to go back and find out for myself.
All of this makes me wonder what other statements I have made and thoughts I have published that I no longer remember or would even claim if confronted with them. And to those of you with eidetic memories who do remember … umm … just stop.
