I Was Normal--Then I Wrote My First Story

Today The Master's Artist welcomes guest poster, K.M. Weiland!

Before I even get started I guess I probably need to disclaim my title. The very fact that I was the type of person who wanted to write a story in the first place probably means I was never normal. Stories running rampant in my head, imaginary people demanding my attention, random bits of dialogue popping off my tongue. Yeah, most definitely not normal. But it gets better—or worse, depending on how you look at it.

In her lauded writing memoir Bird by Bird, Anne Lamont admits that “being a writer guarantees that you will spend too much time alone—and that as a result, your mind will begin to warp.” It’s no secret among artists that we have a unique perspective of the world. The universe bends around our brains in strange patterns. Famed psychiatrist Carl Gustave Jung noted, “The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purpose through him.”

There is a compulsion about art. We write in spite of ourselves. We’d have more money and fewer ulcers if we pursued some other line of work. Some of us have even tried to give it up. But we can’t. We can’t escape the call of words on a page, the inspiration that burns in our veins like adrenaline, the nonexistent people and places that explode from our imaginations into color and sound. Henry Miller wrote that writing is “a turning inside out and voyaging through X dimension, with the result that somewhere along the way one discovers that what one has to tell is not nearly so important as the telling itself.”

I happily surrender the dubious honor of “being normal” in order to be a pilgrim in that journey. So sign me up for the Not Normal Club, complete with T-shirt. I daydream at the breakfast table, take long walks by myself so I can talk to my characters, consider hospital visits research, choreograph action scenes with a butter knife, call my computer by its first name (Howie), read name books like they were pulp novels, plan to save my books first in case of fire, know the real name for that curvy hyphen doohickey (~)… Have I reached the red zone of weirdness, yet? No? Well, send me back to my stories for a few years, and I’m sure I’ll get there.

Strange often equals special. And, although I’m probably entirely prejudiced, I have to qualify writers as a very special bunch. Those of us who are endowed with this wacky life are blessed beyond measure. We dream dreams, we see visions—and we get to write them all down to share with others. Makes normalcy a pretty small sacrifice in comparison, doesn’t it?


P.S. Just in case you were wondering about the curvy hyphen doohickey: It’s called a tilde.


K.M. Weiland writes historical and speculative fiction from her home in the sandhills of western Nebraska. She is the author of the historical western A Man Called Outlaw and the recently released medieval epic Behold the Dawn. She blogs at Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors and AuthorCulture.

Comments

[Michael Snyder]

Nice to know I'm not alone in my weirdness. And to prove it, I actually may be able to use that "tilde" trivia in a story I'm working on.

[Madison Richards]

Mike - Is it weird that I was just thinking the same thing? "Cool bit of unique trivia...I could use that some day..." Ha. We're all a bunch of nut cases, but I wouldn't want it any other way!

K.M. - I've never named my computer, but (Howie) made me laugh out loud! Jeanne better put some points on the board for you, then you'll really be part of the family!

[Linda Yezak]

Sign me up as a member of the Not Normal Club~~~~where can I get my t-shirt?

[Liberty]

Anyone who's met me would think I'm normal... until I start talking about my stories! Then they know there's something wrong with me. :) So, yeah, where's the T-shirt stand?

[Tina F]

I also thought of T-shirts, but that would be too normal. :-)

[K.M. Weiland]

@Michael: Ha! I love it! I'll keep my eyes open for it in your next book.

@Madison: Howie (like any good character) kind of named himself. As soon as I heard his "voice" via the Adobe Reader read-aloud function, I just realized he was meant to be a Howie.

@Linda: Hmm, you know this T-shirt idea could end up being pretty lucrative.

@Liberty: At least you appear normal enough to go undercover amongst the rest of the world!

@Tina: You're right... maybe we should get customized sneakers...

[Lorna]

What a fun post. Loved this! (Glad I'm not the only one who talks to my characters while walking, though people do look at me a bit strange to see my lips moving and no one else there.)

[K.M. Weiland]

It's okay when you're out in the middle of nowhere - but it does get a little weird when you're carrying on conversations in the produce aisle at Wal-Mart.

[susan fish]

Two stories: I didn't fly between 1996 and 2005 (had kids during this time) and while waiting for my first flight in nearly a decade, I noticed a lovely, well-dressed man leaning against a window, intermittently talking to himself. It was quite some time before I realized he was wearing a Bluetooth. My world had been small. All this to say, if you do find yourself prone to talking to yourself in the produce aisle, invest in a Bluetooth. Even a broken one.

Story #2: Learn from my error. A few years ago, a non-writing (aka normal) friend asked me what I had been thinking about in my writing. "I'm trying to decide how I would react," I said, naive in my honesty, "If I were a man who had slept with one of my co-workers, how would I face her the next day?" Her face was priceless. Needless to say, I keep my thoughts to myself now.

[Victor Travison]

As a writer, I often seek to expand my vocabulary, and therefore my horizons, my perspective, and even my sphere of influence. But use one of those words in normal conversation, such as "tilde," and I get the funniest looks. "What's that mean?", or a simple "huh?" is common. I guess they would be the "normal" people, and I have to ratch down the wordage to accommodate them.

~ VT

[K.M. Weiland]

@Susan: I have an iTouch - just like the iPhone, only without the phone. I admit I've considered pretending to talk in it on occasion, just to avoid weird looks!

@Victor: You know, I don't think I've ever worked the word "tilde" into any conversation - normal or not!

[TraciB]

Aah (big sigh of contentment) - I have found my people, at long last! :-)

Try being a lefthanded, offbeat, jewelry-making writer chick (who also hoopdances, as if I'm not already odd enough) in a right-handed, conventional, non-hobby-indulging "normal" family. No wonder I've felt like a misfit my whole life.

It's good to meet and interact with other people who talk aloud to themselves and their characters; who think it's entirely reasonable to wonder what would happen to a corpse dumped in a kudzu patch; and who wouldn't hesitate to ask a resort owner if you need to fictionalize the names of his campground and cabins when you send your characters to his place for the weekend. ;-)

[K.M. Weiland]

Anything in the name of art! When you get in the habit of hanging with a writing crowd, you have to start to wonder if maybe it's the rest of the world that's lost its marbles.

[Jeanne Damoff]

I don't dare invite my characters into the grocery store aisle. My various selves get into embarrassing enough arguments on our own. (I wish I were kidding.)

This is great, K.M. Thanks! :)

[Nadine Liamson]

I'm there with all of you. I can use words like tilde, transom, houppelande, orrery, tapster (just learned that one; it pays to read Shakespeare),incarnadine and ormolu correctly in a sentence (though, perhaps not all in the same one). I'm also a terrible braggart. And you're right; we're neve really "normal" (Maybe some of us can get together and design that T-shirt.)

[K.M. Weiland]

@Jeanne: According to E.L. Doctorow, "Writing is a social acceptable form of schizophrenia." ;)

@Nadine: Shakespeare's the best. His knack for turning a phrase remains unparalleled.

[kat magendie]

*Smiling!* Love this post.

One of the embarrassing parts of what you talked about, for me, is the daydreaming -- I will be staring off into space - deep dark space - sucked up in a black hole - and whomever is around me thinks I'm weird I suppose *laugh* But, those who know me know to just shrug it off and say, "Aw, that's just Kat off in la la land"

[alisa hope]

Love it! I was always a weird, introverted girl. I tried to normalize myself as I became an adult, but now it seems God would have me weird again. Good thing -- being normal is exhausting ;-)

[Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggetts]

Great blog. I actually wonder if anyone who is fully functioning in their God-given gifts can be considered normal. When I think of engineers who love their work or doctors who REALLY love medicine or teachers who can't get enough of the classroom...there always seems to be something "off" about them. :)

I feel bad saying this but it's somewhat comforting to know that those who consider themselves "normal" are usually people who lack purpose and passion; whose gifts lie dormant or ignored.

[K.M. Weiland]

@kat: Yeah, we're weird. But weird in a good way, I always say!

@Alisa: I read a saying last week that resonated: "I tried to be normal for a while - but then it got boring, so I went back to being me."

@Tracey: You have a point. Passion always brings people to life, no matter their field. And I'm sure doctors and engineers have just as many little quirks as writers!