Brainstorming Day 9 - The Creative Zone and the W.I.P.

I've pretty much worn my poor tired brain out with all this brainstorming. When you're writing and creating, especially when you're working your unconscious as well as your conscious - getting your "dream brain" involved - you get into the Zone.

If you succeed well enough, the Zone is like a dream state, and it can make you downright groggy. It's like a painless migraine.

And so today I was standing in the grocery store, glaring at the lettuce because the voices in my head were having a really impassioned argument, when I realized I had no idea why I was there. Luckily the list in my hand said "celery" so I figured that was probably it, although how I came to this place from the 19th century resort hotel, where I had just moments ago discovered a body, I didn't know.

It was at this moment, I had a double-epiphany: One, don't write and drive. Two, wouldn't this be a good quality to give Karla, the slightly ditzy movie buff in my work in progress?

Karla is not a writer, other than blogging and movie analysis, but her life is pretty much devoted to thinking deeply about movies on a deep emotional and intellectual level. There is definitely an aspect of Walter Mitty to Karla.

This may be what Chapter 2 needs. At the moment it bounces too much without actually going anywhere. This may be the peg to hang it on. This could allow me to slow it down and develop something with it, the way I finally did for Chapter 1.

So, two weeks to go before I get back to working on The Man Who Did Too Much, but it's nice to see my mind easing its way back to the story.