Floating aimlessly down the stream

Warning: today’s post is an exercise in stream of consciousness. I wrote a long post for today, but then decided it was too personal, probably better suited to an essay or even memoir. So now I’m left with no topic. Hence …

The post I had written was about how it took most of my life to understand my mother. That was because I didn’t know of an important event in her life. Now I’m thinking how this applies to writing. It’s important to give your reader the right information so they can form a true picture of your character. Then again, you don’t want to give too much information and bog down the story. It’s hard to learn that balance, I think. I tend to fall in love with my protagonists and want to gush, talking endlessly about them, like a teen with a crush.

Do you ever think about how odd writing fiction really is and how it began? I know storytelling began as a way to record the history of a people, as well as teach, I presume. So it would seem embellishing history was the beginning of fiction—instead of this is what happened, it became this is what could have happened. In the same way, morality tales could stem from a real life lesson or a possible one. Fiction is lies, but not pathological ones. Fiction is logical lies, with reason and purpose. Don’t you think?

When you’re actively writing, do you read less? I’m concerned about how few books I’ve read in the last two years I’ve worked on this novel. I have quite a stack of books waiting, but I make little progress on it. I recently started a Goodreads list, in which I’ve listed too few books. I should make time to update that—this week. Or not. But really, it’s rather egotistical to expect anyone to read my books, if I won’t make time to read theirs. Right?

I woke up hungry this morning, which is unusual for me. Do you ever get so hungry you can’t think what you want to eat? Today, my husband offered to take me anywhere for dinner, but I didn’t feel like going out. So then he offered to go pick up food from anywhere, but I was so hungry I couldn’t decide what to eat. That reminds me of a time I took my seven-year-old granddaughter to the pool. After a while, she said she was hungry, so I gathered up our things and told her to get out of the pool so we could eat lunch. But her blood sugar was so low she couldn’t comprehend me. She just kept repeating “I’m hungry!” until she was in tears. I had to physically lead her out of the pool. It was rather frightening how unreasonable someone with low blood sugar can be. Hmmm, maybe I’ll use that in a story sometime.

Okay, this is ridiculous. Sorry, nothing worthwhile floated up out of my stream. Next post will be better … I hope. What’s on your mind today?

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