Writer’s trance

16 May 2010

After a long long hiatus, I am using some of my Copious Free Time for writing science fiction. Not wanting to repeat the mistakes that I saw in a certain Internet imbroglio last year, I am also trying to give myself a better multicultural education, and one of the first books that came to hand was called, natch, Multi-Cultural Literacy. In one essay from that book—“Tlilli, Tlapalli: The Path of the Red and Black Ink”, by Gloria Anzaldúa—there is this passage:

When I create stories in my head, that is, allow the voices and scenes to be projected in the inner screen of my mind, I “trance.” I used to think I was going crazy or that I was having hallucinations. But now I realize it is my job, my calling, to traffic in images. Some of these film-like narratives I write down; most are lost, forgotten. When I don’t write the images down for several days or weeks or months, I get physically ill….

I believe this is the sensation that, in the fanfic community, is known as “plotbunnies”.

• Later: Missing the point
• Earlier: Getting the point