It’s a mid-September kind of day, so I’m shocked when I leave my school’s Rec Center to be greeted by a rather cold breeze. A crow caws. Then a flock of them flutter away, cawing. Immediately, I look for the closest thing to Valyrian Steel I can find to defend myself from the White Walkers I have now convinced myself are coming. I’ve probably just been watching too much "Game of Thrones". But as a writer, it’s also kind of my job to live my life like a story.
Welcome to the wacky mind of a neurotic writer.
I spend about 70 percent of my day in my own head. I think, I imagine, I daydream, I repeat. For every three words I say out loud, I think seven more in my head (I think I did that ratio correctly—I'm a writer, so math has never been my strong suit.). The mind of a writer does not stop to breathe quite often. Or maybe I’m just crazy. Maybe it’s because I write, or maybe it’s because I’m insane. Nonetheless, I’ve just learned to join the two in dubbing myself a neurotic writer.
Not all writers are introverts, but I’ve found that most of them are. As an introvert, it’s not that I don’t like being around people. (Okay, maybe sometimes I don’t like being around people.) But for the most part, a writer’s mind—especially an introverted writer’s mind—ceases to stop internalizing the world around her so as to make sense of it. Correction: make sense of everything. Maybe this hyper-sensitivity to my surroundings doesn’t make me a writer; maybe it just makes me crazy.
See, either way—whether I’m loony or not (let’s face it, I totally am)—writing has always been my way of making sense of the world. At my school, which has its own department and building for writing, I’ve been able to connect with more writers than I have in past years. From those who I’ve met through this program, I’ve gained a rough consensus that most other writers write for the same reason: to understand the world, life and oneself.
I jot down most of the thoughts I have every day—things that confuse me, intrigue me, worry me—and I use them as my fuel to write. It’s quite similar to my method of excelsior, using the negativity and bullshit life throws my way as my fuel to find a silver lining.
Sometimes—no—many times, my attempts at being positive fail miserably. Similarly, my attempts at using my thoughts to make sense of the world through stories doesn’t always go as planned. Ah, the infamous and truly misunderstood writer’s block. I’ve learned through my years of attempting to compose coherent ideas that writer’s block is not as simple as not being able to think of an idea or a topic to write about. More often than not, the writer’s block I experience happens when I get to a point in my writing where I’ve confused myself (I do this much more often than I should). We writers try to make sense of everything through writing, but I guess the cruel and sad truth is that not everything can be solved—especially through the blog posts of a mediocre sophomore writing major.
Some things are just meant to be mysteries, so I have learned (which is great if you’re a mystery writer, I suppose). But for me, it’s a hard reality to face as a perfectionist, as an analytical introvert and as a writer. The world just doesn’t make sense all the time. And who knows, maybe that’s the next thing I need to write about: making sense of the fact that some things just don't make sense.
