Talking to Myself

When things are flowing in fiction, do you take time out to blog? When freelance clients call, do you blog? I love posting Monster Meditations and ideas for blog posts race across my mind all the time, but when I’m wrapped up in a fiction project AND producing text for freelance clients, the posts fall by the wayside.

         Part of me wants to power through! WRITE, do it, don’t skip a single time. Be disciplined and controlled and pound those words out! The other part of me is trying to step back and have rational priorities. Rational priorities? What do they have to do with anything? Not much. Here I am at the keyboard.

         Blogging is fun.

         For me it’s a way to explore odd thoughts and observations that cross my mind and may—or more likely may not—develop into a full work of fiction. Today’s odd amusement is about talking to myself. Or, more to the point, observing other people talking to themselves.

         Setting the ubiquity of ear buds and headsets aside, early this afternoon I took a walk and SILENTLY talked to myself about what my characters would do next in a story-in-progress. I encountered some not-so-silent folks talking on the street to imaginary companions and by the time I reached my destination, I had a great deal to ponder and to share with you.

         It started on 13^th Street. I was walking a few paces behind two women and I saw ahead of us there was a gentleman standing still and in an animated conversation, complete with declarative hand gestures and eyes turned toward his conversation partner. But when I passed the two women (slow walkers) I realized he was alone; and the conversation was taking place with an empty spot on the sidewalk. For a moment I contemplated a story about a man who speaks with ghosts. I know, it’s been done before but if I could come up with a new approach, my curiosity about this stranger in mid-conversation would be worthwhile.

         I turned up 6^th Avenue and, in rapid succession, I was treated to a series of solo conversationalists! One was explaining that he had “…always been a screw up. Didn’t go to school, didn’t make anything of himself” another was obviously impaired, but no less loquacious, the third was equally adamant…

         Did they know that the words were slipping out to where people outside their minds could hear? Did they care? I don’t think talking to oneself is particularly weird. I sometimes talk to my cats—assured that, unless they talk back, I’m not losing my mind. But most of my monologues are very, very quiet. A whisper might escape in public—out loud only at home. What about you?