brain vs. fingers March 7, 2007
Writing, for me, is an hilarious experience.
Yes, “an”. I’m couth like that.
Sometimes I can start writing, and the words are coming faster than I can put them on to paper. I start moving my fingers and the words come out, as if they were always sitting there on the wooden shelf in the medicine cabinet of my mind, next to the snake oil and the something or other ointment, behind the glass of old raisins, directly in front of the wrinkled aluminum foil wrapper containing one last Tums. (Are Tums still plural when they are singular? Is it just a Tum?)
It’s strange.
I can never figure out what to write until I actually begin. Take this for example. I have no idea what I’m going to say. As I type, it is as if I am a bystander watching my brain form words into thoughts and eventually sentences which I have never conceived. Stand by: more words, says my brain to my fingers.
Yes, sir, brain, sir!
And then the words are upon me. Flowing, flying, flitting, fortuitously fumbling alliterated gerunds as if I was attempting to fail sophomore English.
Occasionally I stop and stare in horror at the grammar, the word choice, the spelling, the repetition, the cliche, the horrific rambling ecstasy of it all. Then my fingers take over. They command the brain — get in line! Correct this, fix that, or I shall drown you in backspace until you have met thy doom.
Mad proofreading skillz were once a gift, now they are the ultimate curse. I find myself breaking out the red pen before the black has finished its task. Say my fingers, “correct this, delete this, mark this thought ‘incomplete’ and that one “needs more Worcestershire sauce.’” The red pen rejoices! The black pen sits and grows sullen. And cobwebs.
When one’s transformation an unintentional perfectionist, it becomes increasingly impossible to finish writing anything. At paragraph 11, critical mass is reached and there become an unlimited number of tweaks that could be made before it could possibly be considered wise to move on to paragraph 16.
That’s part of the reason a lot of things that I wr—
Crap.
I’m supposed to be doing homework right now.
