Toying At Our Leisure (original) (raw)

So I've been thinking about this.

No, that's not right - I've been feeling my way through this.

I've been working on this AU, Undertow, which I've mentioned here and there, and it's very different from my other AU insofar as AETI is largely mapped out, and I have a fairly good idea where it's going and how it's going to get there.

With Undertow, however, I've just set up a situation, and now I'm writing it to see how it plays out. I know what I don't want to have happen, in broad strokes, but the details of it are as much a mystery to me as they are to the characters. We're all just trying to get through, the blind author leading the blind characters - though it feels like it's the other way around.

I have been interested to note that a certain amount of the time, I'm literally writing it with my eyes closed. A little tired (or a lot), because that's when my internal censor is mostly asleep, I'll sit there with the laptop, eyes closed, and feel my way along through a scene, typing as I go.

The typos are horrendous, of course, but usually not so bad that I can't figure out what I wrote when I open my eyes.

But what's most interesting to me about this process is the headspace I get into when I'm doing it. It's very much like the zone I used to get in the studio when I was an art student - strangely non-verbal, except of course words are coming out. But ... well, I see it in my mind, feel it in a sort of dreamlike way, and the only access that my verbal mind has to it is enough to take dictation.

I think it's one thing that keeps me coming back to the story.

Do you ever write with your eyes closed?