Say What?

"I see dead people," Little Haley Joel proclaimed breath coming in frosty gusts, fear and uncertainty all about him. Well, Little Haley Joel...I hear voices. Lots of them. They call to me at all hours and the day and invade when I have other important matters to be done like work. Sometimes infusing snark or matters of sadness, the scene building up around those voices. No, I don't need to be medicated people. I'm talking dialogue. It's one of my favorite parts of actually writing. I love engineering twisting and twirling plots of story or clever turns of phrase and prose but there's nothing quite like just sitting down and penning straight dialogue...figuring out the back and forth. When a scene gets too hard or I've written myself into more of a corner than I originally meant to...sometimes the dialogue is all I have until that shining piece of genius comes to me telling me how to get out of the hole I've dug so deeply for my characters.

Like I said before, those voices can intrude at the most inopportune of moments. They steal away your attention and leave you defenseless. High drama or low comedy. Caught in the throes of their interchange, I've worried more than once that I'd blurt those words in a sullen quiet, making my companions regard me as strange. Though, my friends and family have long since accepted that I'm cut out different than the rest. From what they're used to at least because were I to do the same in the company of my writer friends they would understand almost immediately. The same goes if I suddenly erupt into action reaching for a pen and notebook that I usually keep with me or at the side of my bed. They understand...something has come to me and clicked where it didn't make sense before. The voices have gone on and unmedicated and make an awful kind of wonderful sense. Logic. Poetry. Reason. Horror. Okay, I'll admit that I'm rambling now and for no reason at all other than one of the voices took control of my fingers (flying across the keys) for a moment there and insisted on having her say. I'm back now, have her harness and locked tight...working on the chapter that's been awaiting my attention for these few days past. To be quite honest, I'd rather here voices than see dead people. All the time ;)