Right? People tell me that and I just scratch my head. Color me... puzzled. I grow a pair of questioning "11's" between my eyebrows... I tip my head to the side like a dog, silently saying "Huh? Why would I ever want to?" This is where my money comes from! Having a very subtle rein on the insanity that is my bread and butter. Insanity is very much like a pair of mismatched "spirited" horses who are harnessed together. Get your cameras ready... epicness ensues!!! AnonyMouse, I agree with every word you wrote (and I checked them carefully). In thinking about what you said about not being "tired", it occurred to me that on weekends, I tend to crash about four hours after I stop writing. For instance, I am lying on the couch, in my fancy, dressed up, black-tie 'writing jammies' (AKA whatever I happened to grab upon exiting the bed that morning), reading with the TV on (movies are easy to ignore and provide instant entertainment in the event that I might inadvertently turn my head, from the book), when suddenly I cannot keep my eyes open. I am spent. Utterly exhausted and feel like I am either dying or at least 'circling the drain'. If I keep myself awake, I am okay in an hour or two. Otherwise I wake up, one hour later, glued to the leather couch with a magical combination of sleep-slobber and dream-drool. My eyes are practically glued shut with eye boogers and overall, I am a puffy, disgusting mess. Sleeping for an hour, with my mouth wide open, I wake up with breath that feels like a burp died, trying to get out. My tongue feels scorched, sunburned and dry. I drag myself to the bathroom to brush my teeth and am met, at the mirror, with a visage of what can only be described as 'the face of the village idiot". Swollen eyes, puffy lips and hair that can only be understood by women whose hair naturally goes all Shirley Temple. On a GREAT HAIR DAY. Mine is an example of what happens on all the other days. Humid days. If you could wear a hat? But only on one side of your head? That's my hair, when I wake up. Justin Bieber 'forward brush' on one side, crazed madman on the other.
You are a funny man. No, seriously, I find it refreshing to see someone write posts in this story/blog like fashion. It made me smile and chuckle, so thank you for that!
You are welcome! When I read Bill Bryson or Jen Lancaster, Mary Roach, Dave Barry or Dr. Richard Feynman, it reverberates in me! I feel that humor is so much better when it's self-effacing and honest. When you admit your weakness and point out that weaknesses strengths and humor. Or the weakness everyone has, but never talks about. Like staring at your freshly woken up self, in the mirror and saying "Jesus wept; what happened here?"
Same here. Only time I could sleep was after working 10-15 hours on a project. For me, once I get into the creative phase (which is different than the editing phase) I can't walk away. It's very difficult to do so, and I end up having to force myself to go. Only time I'm tired when writing is when I'm editing. That's mentally draining work.
I wonder how many of us have insomnia in one form or another? It's like sleep is an addiction for weak-minded, lazy people and writers eschew it on moral grounds. And like those who want [something] the most, we go on about how we just don't need it. Which is almost true. But we WANT it SOOOO badly. If somebody said "Hey. If you push that old lady down, I'll let you have a great night's sleep." I might not do it, but I probably wouldn't discard the notion, straightaway. People'd be looking at me all horrified. "You have to THINK about this?!?!" "Oh. Uh, no. NO! OF COURSE NOT!" [sigh]
I took the photo below, just now. I mean I am more quirky than weird [eye twitch]. And I only drink a lot, like four or five days a week. Mostly my depression is manageable and gets punctuated by those awesome spells where I spend all my money and don't need any sleep so that is totally *not* the same. I hate all stereotypes. Since I can't upload images from Photobucket to this site, here is a photo I took with my phone, from Google, this morning. I sort of thought the one which my friend sent me was a gag. Not really, I guess. Us writers are loveable, passionate and cuddly but perhaps only truly able to be understood by other writers. Only another writer would understand the concept of waking up at three AM to get something out. And then continuing until two in the afternoon. Then passing out from mental exhaustion and not knowing what day it is for a while. Sure, for us, that is perfectly understandable. Even normal and to be encouraged! But your co-workers may assume you need to be watched perhaps a bit more carefully for other odd behaviors I know I wouldn't want any of you to be anything other than what you are. And rather than watch you more carefully, I wish we could all be left to our own devices for long enough to get some work done, uninterrupted.
You can link photos from Photobucket. That's the site I always use. Of the four choices it gives, Email & IM, Direct, HTML, IMG, you want the Direct. Anywho... No, I don't think people think I'm weird. I think they think I'm quiet, which for some people who are uncomfortable around quiet people has a way of reading as aloof, arrogant, stuck-up, conceited (that last one only if you're in 7th grade. Think about it, have ever used the word conceited as an adult?) I also think some people think I suffer from ADHD (in its common, misused lay-term sense) in that when I'm doing something, I don't really like being disturbed and when I'm doing what I'm doing, I'm doing what I'm doing. I'm in it. Balls deep. That kind of focus bothers some people.
Maybe writers are like a magnifying glass. If you just wave it around, it is all unfocused and blurry. But it is capable of amazing focus, on one thing. After that, all you can do is make it less effective by distracting it.
@JetBlackGT Since I was a child people seem to have viewed me as a bit of an eccentric... I'm very passionate about the things I care about, even when some of those things seem a little off-the-wall to some folks. A bit random. Do I consider myself weird? No... not at all. I think sometimes people get the wrong impression to start with, but I think on having a conversation any misgivings are quickly laid to rest. None of my friends can wrap their heads round the times I choose to write. They can't understand for the life of them why I would stick two fingers up at my nice comfy bed just to type out a paragraph. It does... there have been times when I've got stuck in and my friends are nearly sending out a search party. Granted, my friends are my mental caretakers and they see it as their responsibility to ensure I'm not going from having tight focus to becoming completely manic. It's a right pain in the ass sometimes. When I tell them I need a bit of solitude they immediately become suspicious I'm actively allowing it to happen rather than taking the necessary steps to lessen the impact. I think unless friends themselves have a hobby/passion that requires the same kind of intensity it can take to write well, they are ill-equipped to understand.
Sometimes I feel that people think I'm weird for liking literature and philosophy too much. Oh well... I'm inclined to believe that all good writers have some weird quality about them. Dostoevsky was addicted to gambling, Tolstoy believed that having sex for pleasure was wrong, Nabokov wrote most of his novels on index cards, Balzac drank up to fifty cups of coffee a day, Dickens touched objects three times for "luck," and Kafka was, well, Kafka. So if there's something weird about you, don't be ashamed of it. Embrace it! You're in good company.
Sometimes I think writers get a bit myopic about their "differences". Ever seen a biker who's trying to fix his ride? Or a carpenter remodeling his/her own house? A gardener in the spring? People handle their interests/hobbies/livelihoods in the same way as everyone else - according to the person.
Agreed. Also, I think there's the phenomenon of famous writers becoming mythologized so that their eccentricities or other things associated with them grow in proportion to the myth. Allen Ginsberg was ever eschewing the myth of The Beat Writers as a thing that grew out and away from the writers themselves and was not the thing he actually experienced.
People are often surprised by what they find out once they get to really know me (which isn't something I let happen often, as I am a text-book introvert). I am young and female and look normal, but I receive a lot of strange looks when I start talking about things that matter to me. Like the insolvency of social security, the dangers of certain economic policies, the state of the world, etc. They are surprised to find that I am an illustrator, that I actually do what I love every day (because not everyone gets to do their dream job), and even more surprised to learn I have 3 kids and a husband, as if I look too young or not experienced enough. Sometimes I feel 50 instead of 28, because my thought process is very logically-based when it comes to decisions, versus emotionally based like many of my peers, or what you would expect from an artist. I wouldn't say I'm weird, but unique. So unique in fact, I don't know anyone quite like me, who shares my views and beliefs in quite the same combination. I do have my quirks though. I like the curtains closed, and the lights low (if on at at all). I don't like noise, or clutter (good luck with that one with 3 kids, right?), and I'd rather spend hours by myself at home than hours doing something needlessly dangerous like hiking mountains or jumping out of planes. I am lucky though, because despite what most people would call an uneventful life, I am ridiculously happy with it. Like others have posted, lots of people assume I am stuck up because I usually keep quiet. Truth is, I just don't have much to say that won't scare people away so I err on the side of caution. Most people would rather not have a political debate on the spot, so I try to filter my passions from my everyday interactions with people. XD
No, people don't really think I'm weird, so maybe I'm not. Sure, sometimes I do things I rarely see other people do, like sit on a sidewalk watching hares play on a school yard at 2am, but to me that's not weird, that's just doing something I feel like doing at the time -- plus I like hares, so why not. That is probably connected to writing, though, 'cause I seek inspiration from all kinds of places, and in order to find it, you sometimes have to head off the beaten path or be impulsive. I just feel like other people are too embarrassed to do things they'd want, or observe the world as much as they'd like for fear of appearing weird. Many people are quite concerned of the image they project to the outside world, and that can be quite limiting. Unless the image is decidedly weird... but then you'd probably be embarrassed to look "normal"; have brown hair, wear jeans and a t-shirt, work a nine-to-five job, etc.
I don't agree at all. 1) social skills is just as a skillset as writing. That means that the more you socialize the better you get. 2)about the being 'weird' problem, it's a whole different problem that you care too much what others think. People always have opinions, you know what is good for you. You think for yourself. What you can do is give your point of view. People actually appreciate hard workers and passionate individuals. If you are not a sociable person, than no matter what you do , you will be perceived as weird. So go socialize.
I say bring it on. People might assume I'm weird but everyone is a bit weird in their own unique ways. You can expose anyone given enough time. It's all perspective but it's the people who don't think they're weird that you have to watch out for. Those are the people who end up in the pysch ward.
Sometimes I say things in an odd way. Like maybe instead of saying "I'm hungry" I might say "I could use something edible about now." Yeah sometimes I try to be funny, but mostly I'm just being myself and even though I get the "you're kinda weird, Ron" statement, I find being myself allows others to feel more comfortable around me. It's not that alienating awkwardness.. but more the lighthearted kind. Generally though, I prefer the quiet and usually engage in conversation only so the other person doesn't feel like I hate them in some way..
I would love the freedom to be able to be eccentric, but sadly I need to hold down a normal job and be a responsible parent so weird is definitely off the table. I would say people think I am antisocial at the moment because the miniscule amount of free time I do get is mostly spent writing.
Probably they are, if you think so. The question is what do you want to do about that? Embrace it, change it, or probably both. You hold all the answers, so what is your goal?
I've always had a parallel extrovert side that existed in tandem with my introvertedness. I managed to separate the two, and until a few years ago, both were separate entities. Now they've merged into one to create one super introverted-extrovert hybrid (or extroverted-introvert) - but I've never been considered weird for it. However, I do feel a widening disconnect with my peers because of it, even though I can interact and enjoy their company on a different level. Finding friendships that fulfill both sides are few and far between, like unicorns.
