Mind the Reality

The thing about getting away from the every day and visiting someplace like Oklahoma, where you hike and play outside or relax on the bench swing in the evening, is that it pulls you out of your head and anchors you back in reality.  This is good for those people in my life who do not like having a conversation with me only to have me reply halfway through with, "Huh?" because they had lost me somewhere in the talk to the world inside my head.  Sharif has become adept at seeing the signs that I'm no longer there--the eyes tend to glaze over, the face loses expression.  He calls it "Kelly's World" because it has become that tangible in our lives.

My imagination is on constantly, breeding fantasies, holding conversations between characters who I've either already created or, apparently, will create.  Sometimes something he or someone else says will trigger it.  For instance, there was this time while I was in the middle of writing my as-of-yet unpublished urban fantasy that I had been sitting on the couch, writing and watching TV, when he came in to tell me about some UFC match or something and I started out very much paying attention to him.  But then the way he described one of the fighters--I loved the way he described him--and my brain just switched, like a flipped light, and it went to that made-up world and saw one of the characters and it was the perfect way to describe that character and so while he continued to excitedly rant about this fight, my mind was implementing his description of the UFC fighter into a story about elves.  It happens quite a bit.  So when I have moments that can distract me enough to not hover the wordly lines and plant my feet firmly here, I do appreciate it.  For myself and those in my life.  It's nice to experience life without being on constant observation and scavage.

However.  There then comes a time when I need to go back to that world.  I have to be fully immersed in it if I'm going to write about it.  That same urban fantasy--I'm in the process of re-writing it.  I want it to be the next book I publish.  And I have to get myself back into those characters' lives in order to do so, but Oklahoma and hikes and zoos and family have locked the door to the imagination world.  So while I very impatiently wait for it to re-open, I've been reading and cleaning and cooking dinner (on time!) and everything else that I should do while I'm away writing.  Playing catch-up, I guess.  But I'm growing impatient waiting.  Waiting for whatever it will be that will trigger it--another crazy description, a song that inspires, a lanscape.  And then I'll be wandering around glassy eyed and focused on a world you can't see.  But don't worry, I'll come back again.

Best,
Kelly