The Writing Habit…

I will be the first to admit that I have a (bad?) habit of ignoring things or people when I am focused on my writing. I don’t always realize how all-consuming the storytelling process becomes until someone calls me out on it.

This morning was a perfect example. I woke up and went about my routine, got ready for work, made breakfast…and somewhere along the way I opened up my laptop and started writing. Before I knew what had happened, my husband was leaving the house, and I hadn’t even put my shoes on. It was time for me to leave as well, and I spent the next few minutes rushing about. I had once again fallen victim to my creative drive, and I needed to be on my way to work.

When I messaged my husband later in the afternoon, we had an interesting conversation:

As strange as it may seem, I am almost always thinking about some aspect of my current writing project. I plan and plot scenes while I’m driving to or from work, I think about conversations that ought to happen between key characters while I’m working in the lab, and sometimes I’ll be speaking with someone and something they say catches my attention— “Hey, I could use that in my book!” I’ve even been known to dream about my writing projects on occasion.

What I am incredibly thankful for is that my husband seems to understand this about me, and he’s accepting of it. (We will be celebrating our fifteenth anniversary in May, so he has had ample opportunity to adjust to my quirks, I suppose.)

There are times when I find it difficult to detach myself from the writing and return to reality, particularly when the story is coming together and the characters are working well with one another. I’m in the midst of one such project right now (The Triad Murders, part of The Mage War Chronicles), and I had to not only remind myself that it was time to go to work this morning, but I also had to remind myself that it is Thursday, and I ought to write something for my blog.

I’ll keep it short this week, since I need to get back to writing the story that’s playing out in my head…