It’s funny; I absolutely hate to leave my house. COVID-19 hit, everyone and their mother completely lost their mind because hair care, and socializing and now-that-they-are-being-told-they-can’t-leave-they-don’t-want-to-stay. There is so much to be frightened and stressed over with this pandemic; but, if I’m being honest with myself, staying home is not even a blip on my stress-o-meter. In fact, I am happiest when I am home alone, taking that brief amount of time with no kids and no husband to act out the nervous energy that bottles itself up over the course of the days, weeks, and months of doing the same things every day/week. If anything is stressing me out, it’s not having any time alone.
See, I go places when I’m alone. The best trips I’ve ever been on have occurred while I lay in bed, sheets pulled to the tip of my nose and music playing just loud enough to get the gears spinning. The noises, sounds and echoes I hear are like turning over a car engine, boarding a plane, or buying a train ticket; they take me places. It’s easy to pack for and I just need some music to fuel the jet and then *poof*, I’m gone.
I remember one time I was at work and a song I was unfamiliar with came on; instantly I was on horseback, riding to battle with my companions to defeat the demonic hoard threatening our land. The victory, the subsequent betrayal, overwhelming feelings of crushing defeat and abject despair, all playing out like a movie behind my eyes. The world I inhabited filled itself in as the hoof beats pounded silently in my head, the strings of the song lifting the story to a fully saturated and color-filled world. I pulled together an entire D&D campaign out of that one song, the whole world unfolding in my mind as the song played out, “Primavera” by Ludovico Einaudi.
It’s been like that since I was a child; my escape from my parent’s divorce, bullies at school, abuse at home, heartbreak, life’s stresses. I would throw on some music and let my mind run where ever it needs to go. I’ve mourned the loss of loved ones, I’ve been married, widowed, divorced, murdered, heroic, cowardly… I’ve been able to go to this place and craft any narrative I needed to explore the feelings in life I didn’t have the courage or safety to feel in the present. It was a coping skill that, over time, developed into a cauldron where my stories and ideas brew. My mom used to call it “La La Land”; I would zone out, sitting and staring at the wall unblinking for who knows how long, living out the wildest, most vivid non-real realities a small child could live out. I was Aurora; I was April O’Neal; I was Vickie Vale! My mom would wave her hand in front of my face and attempt to un-hypnotize me, pulling me from the exciting worlds I was living in to remind me that my dinner still needed to be eaten and, surprise, now I need to finish it cold.
Last year, a friend of mine and I took a (real) trip to Chicago to have a Ladies Weekend. Other than being one of the very best actual trips I’ve ever been on, it was a really fun bonding experience with this particular friend (I did so many of the stupidest, comic-relief type stuff that I will never live down; go me!). On the day we decided to do bottomless momosas (No regrets, just pure comedy), we were drunk at brunch when I, mid-sentence, stared off into the distance for about forty-five seconds. When I “came back”, I began furiously typing what I had seen into my phone as fast as my now uncoordinated fingers could fat-finger. My friend, now perturbed and more than a little concerned, asked me if everything was all right when I described to her my (freshly minted) idea for a screenplay, a full feature length film that I “watched”/”came up with” in those 45 seconds (mind you, it felt like 90 minutes to me since I was “watching a movie”). She listened to my story, shook her head, and laughed at finally “witnessing the process”.
I try to read up on other author’s processes; how they craft narratives piece by piece, planning or pantsing or plantsing (NaNoWriMo failboat afloat over here), story webs, character interviews, etc. I’ve always just taken trips to “La La Land” and come back with stories with full worlds already attached. It kind of works like this: I am a character, exploring something in my world. Maybe it’s a feeling or emotion. Maybe it’s a failure of communication. Maybe I am discovering love for the first time in a long time. Then, once I have my scene, I let the scene play out organically. As an example, I might be a lonely woman, sitting in a cafe in a town she can’t afford to live in anymore. I’m making a decision whether I should stay and try one more time to make it work here, or if it’s time to go. Suddenly, …you get the idea. Now, my brain will take that and immediately fill in the blanks: why is she lonely (her lover left her for an ex), why was she trying to “make it work” (she moved here for the lover that left her), why would she want to stay (her work here is very fulfilling), why can’t she make it work (cities are expensive, and she just lost her roommate/lover), etc. Depending what additional conflict is interesting to me in that moment is where the story will go. I will frequently reuse starting points like that and change details to see where I see the story organically going, which often spawns new stories in the same world, or new worlds with stories that are thematically similar.
Anyway, I decided to write about this today because while everywhere I read about writing on the internet (Twitter, Reddit, blogs, etc.) talks a lot about the mechanical action of writing but I don’t always see a lot in terms of process. To me, the process of writing very much starts in audio waves, which are translated to visual depictions and, from there, deciphered onto the page. It’s the journey over the destination. It’s the places I go to when I don’t leave that make up the process for the places I hope to get to with my writing. Because, if I’m honest, I hope my writing someday affords me the ability to travel to places physically that I have only imagined mentally. Who knows, maybe fake trips are good preparation for real trips. I think I have quite a bit of time before I need to learn how best to pack, though. I suppose time will tell on that one. 😛
-V. Raylean
A Portly Bard's Stage 