Monkey Brain Cheerios

It has now occurred to me, after sitting in front of my computer for about six hours straight each day for the past four days, that when I put my mind to something, I do not stop. And I wonder what is the line between being single-minded and obsessive.

It's not that I don't obsess about stuff, people, situations. But in conversation with my livejournal friend Fia, I reconsidered my use of that word. Because Fia loves Adam Baldwin and Zac Levi (title character) from the TV show Chuck so much that she watches every crappy movie they are ever in. Even Big Momma's House 2. And I love a couple of actors to an extreme degree, but nothing, other than the promise of large bags of cash, would get me to watch the VDO version of Big Momma's House 2. I will, however, watch Hot Fuzz so many times I can recreate it scene and line in my head.

And I will, in the face of a hurricane bearing down on my home state, unable to communicate with anyone of my loved ones due to cell phone dysfunction, ignore the news and sit in front of my computer for hours on end, not talking to the guest in our house, not even noticing there's a natural disaster happening, to finish a story.

It has been so long since I've written anything longer than a prose-poem that I had forgotten the intensity of being so in the zone of what I'm writing that I can't even hold a conversation without another one taking place in my head between my characters. I am useless in these situations. I do not eat well, I live off candy and caffeine, the Husband (proud though he is, and happy for me as well) has to put up with my mind constantly being elsewhere. Once I reach that point of no return I am without remorse, ignoring the niceties of everyday life (don't even ask me when my last shower was) in order to finish.

And then, once I do, after the happy dance, the crowing, and once my heartbeat slows to a normal pace, and I lift my head to look around and see if the Husband has moved from the couch, and if the world is still standing, the doubt sets in. And the obsession takes a new turn as now I constantly think about the story, but from a different perspective, a darker, more critical voice takes up residence in my head and I am grumpy, almost inconsolable, so certain what I've written sucks big donkey dick. No more accomplishment, no more crowing.

I only have to examine this a little to understand why I will never be a professional writer.

For the record, my great accomplishment is an epic piece of fanfiction (23,000 words), which, when I manage to gag the mean and nasty Editor who lives in my head, I am actually quite proud of, even if it is fanfiction. Because for that few weeks I was so immersed in my story, I was happy. I felt creative. I loved what I was doing. I suppose if I were a more well-balanced person (though I don't know many writers who are), I would focus on that, that great feeling I experienced while creating my world, constructing dialogue, setting scenarios, pushing through blocks to the finish when I hadn't finished anything in over five years.

I finished my story, y'all.

My family is safe. My city survived and didn't drown.

And I finished my story.