How You Played
I seem to live with a slew of imaginary people. Except to ME, they are very real. I don't--not ever--think of my characters as belonging to me. They are real, breathing people SOMEWHERE. That these people could come from my head is as fascinating to me as giving birth to four children and thinking that infant . . . that Demon Baby . . . came from ME?
But when I was a little girl I did not have any imaginary friends. Oldest Daughter did. She had an imaginary horse and an imaginary good witch. She had lengthy conversations with them. Demon Baby appears to have some imaginary friends--mostly he blames them when I discover a mess and say, "Who did this?" He usually replies, "You won't believe it, but just a minute ago, a HUGE GIANT came through here and HE took the sugar bowl and dumped it on the carpet!"
However, I do remember a distinct aspect of my playtime. I would play house, for example . . . and would be playing when all of a sudden, I would decide I needed to alter character or setting or dialogue . . . I would say to my playmates, "No . . . . this isn't working. You should enter the house from over THERE and you should say this bit of dialogue--it'll sound much better." Playing with me was like playing with Spielberg. I wanted to control the dialogue, the imaginary careers . . . even entrances and exits. "No . . . slam the door to show how mad you are!"
Budding director? Perhaps. But even then, I think, I recognized the value of a dramatic pause, of tweaking dialogue. I played like a WRITER.
How about you? Do you remember any telltale signs that . . . you . . . were . . . different? And I mean "different" in the nicest possible way. :-)
34 comments:
When I feel that I'm controlling my characters, they seem wooden to me. I may "create" them, in a sense, but they are most meaningful when they decide to do something I wouldn't have had them do.
I suspect most writers have those experiences where the characters act in unexpected ways.
Hi Joe:
I agree. I find my characters very much surprise me, and that is one of the more delightful things about being a writer.
E
When I was eight or nine, my cousin and I got our hands on a portable reel-to-reel tape recorder (pre-cassette, like the one that self-destructed every week at the beginning of the original Mission: Impossible TV show), and it wasn't enough to just hear our voices and play them back. I had to produce a show, complete with music and jokes and everything. So, yeah, I think I had some basic instincts for drama at an early age.
I know that I played with dolls much longer than many of my friends. Creating scenes, storylines and building their world. I wrote a book, set up dolls the way I wanted the book illustrated, took photos and developed the photos in my dad's dark room, then wrote the book by hand again, leaving space for my photos.
I'd say that would probably qualify as "different" but a tell-tale sign, now that I think of it.
Jude:
LOL! I did the same thing.
E
Amy:
That is totally cool.
I had a dollhouse . . . I was very involved with it all my teen years.
E
Primarily that I was an obsessive reader.
There were probably other signs--off-and-on keeping journals, if I liked a book I might write a short story featuring the characters or tack on a couple pages to the end of a book I liked.
a HUGE GIANT came through here and HE took the sugar bowl and dumped it on the carpet!"
This gave me a laugh. If DB lived in my house, my dog would be glued to his side, waiting for accidents.
I daydreamed. Of course, I was the star of my daydreams, but I created secondary characters.
Mark:
I read obsessively, too, and often imagied myself in the book or longed for the books to come to life or be real.
E
Edie:
Giants, monsters, and dragons do a LOT of damage in our house.
:-)
E
I was always on my imaginary horse, so as you can imagine, I galloped form point "a" to point "b". Can you say "Dork?"
I've never owned a horse, never learned to ride one, either, but have included them in two of my manuscripts. (So far)
My daughter had an imaginary friend, a little girl named Joey. She set her places at the table and made me include her in every game. She stopped needing Joey after she got into school and made real world friends.
She's actually a lot like you describe yourself as a child. She sets the scenes, comes up with the plots, and directs every kid in the neighborhood. When all the kids are playing outside in the summer, my daughter is the ring leader. She even makes movies of them, and then has my hubby burn the disks so she can give copies out to all of her 'actors'. I notice she's almost never in the movies, but she's always the voice over... funny.
I didn't do any of this as a child and I wasn't partial to dolls. I was the youngest of three so I was mostly directed rather than getting to be in charge... and all the kids in the neighborhood were older than me, so that didn't work either. I did read, but I didn't write much until I was older... I drew. I took art classes on Saturdays from early in grade school and begged for oil paints before most kids knew they existed. I didn't have imaginary friends, but I had a blank page and pencils... I drew. I was the only one who could - at least on that level, it was my special thing. When I told stories it was with one picture, but it was as elaborate as I was able.
I look at it now as a stepping stone. They're both forms of communication, but I had to work through drawing until I was comfortable enough to really trust my words... that came in high school...
In first grade, I got in trouble for staring out the window all the time. (Well! I could read and I could multiply and divide!)
By second grade, I learned how to look at the teacher with varying degrees of confusion, along with that lightbulb-going-on expression at apt times (teachers love that), and complete attentiveness.
All the while, I was TOTALLY and completely living in another world. I had these stories and characters that would go on for YEARS. I'd spend about two hours falling asleep at night, just so I could experience how their stories unfolded.
"You won't believe it, but just a minute ago, a HUGE GIANT came through here and HE took the sugar bowl and dumped it on the carpet!"
Coffee out the nose. OMG, that is classic!
When I'm working, I'll think I WANT MY STORY TO FEEL LIKE X. I meditate on X, create an X collage, soak in visuals and sounds that represent X to me, until X is what appears on the page.
I started writing around junior high and always read a lot. I also had extensive barbie and cabbage patch kid worlds. I also drew a lot. I remember one summer a friend and I made about 200 paper people and created little worlds for them.
I didn't do plays, but I was very into choreographing dances to go with my favorite songs, always interpreting the words. But aside from the writing, I always had at least one or two friends who were into the same thing so I didn't consider myself different.
kath:
Maybe that's the universe's way of saying you still have to learn to ride!
E
merry:
I loved sketching and charcoal . . . but was always too self-critical and never really pursued it, which I do regret. I would like to take up watercolor--but again, I think I'm too self-critical. So now I think . . . hmm . . . I should do multimedia collage where staying in the lines isn't even an issue. So that's on my very long list of things I want to try.
E
spy:
LOL on how you acted in the classroom!!!
E
Hather:
Very neat. Sounds like Marcia Collette's visualization wall.
E
melanie:
A friend and I once got a huge piece of paper and created this pen and ink world--apartment buildings with people looking out of all the windows and so on. We spent a summer on it. Totally fun!
E
melanie:
A friend and I once got a huge piece of paper and created this pen and ink world--apartment buildings with people looking out of all the windows and so on. We spent a summer on it. Totally fun!
E
LMAO @ "playing with me was like playing with Spielburg" hahaha no doubt!
My imaginary friend was Wonder Woman. She went with me everywhere. My choir teacher once sat on Wonder Woman (I was three) and I was fairly upset about it. I don't actually remember this event, but at family gatherings it gets retold over and over.
And I always like to think that my stories are true, somewhere. Like in an alternate reality, or a parallel dimension or something like that. That idea was really fleshed out for me at the end of a children's novel called: "Witch Week" by Diana Wynne Jones (I think that's how you spell her name.)
I played by myself a lot. Just me and all my stuffed animals. Gave them all roles and spoke their dialogue for them. Between that and reading, my dad figured out that sending me to my room wasn't a punishment. When I did play with other kids, they were mostly younger than me. They were the ones I babysat, so I was always in charge.
My writing (poetry) started in elementary school. Put together my first 'book' in 6th grade.
The mere thought of a miniature "you" running around telling everybody how to act is insanely endearing to me. I would've invited you to come join my undead baby army that I imagined I was commanding to do my bidding. You would've been in the front ranks, fo' sho'. Too bad I didn't get that I was "different" then. :D
Hmmm, maybe I'm not a writer after all. My dolls were merely students and I the teacher until my brother got big enough to teach, he still blames me because he is left-handed.
I am called the Drama Queen by many but I think the truth be known their lives are so quiet they have no idea what drama is.
I have to go, I'm the Mom in the elementary school play and it's time for rehearsal.
May your carpet be sweet, your giants gentle, and your cheeks damp from doggie style kisses.
Erica, I think you're right. It's time to say giddy-yap. Broken bones here I come!
Oh heck, yeah! I completed entire movies with a cast of imaginary characters. Even won a couple of imaginary Oscars for acting, directing, producing, cinematography, original and adapted screenplays, etc. I think I even won best song.
The way I looked at it, it was my imagination, so I could do whatever I wanted as big as I wanted. Who was going to stop me? Me? Yeah, right. I was too busy handing out Grammy Awards and Miss America crowns to myself, too. LOL!
Let's see, I stuck out in the classroom cause after summer vacation, I actually clapped my hands in glee whenever the teacher demanded a witten page on what we did over the summer. While groans rang out, my happy dance was kinda noticeable. And I daydreamed like crazy, checked out all the books allowed on library day, and made up stories in my head for fun.
And I do remember bobby pinning a long swirl of ribbon to my short hair once, because I was a pretend ballerina and I wanted long hair. I wore it to the dinner table, at play. My brother laughed, of course. :)
Zoe:
If you have to have an imaginary friend, Wonder Woman is a good one!
E
sarah:
We had a big Irish family down the street (from Belfast, I think) . . . and I liked going there because there were tons of them! But other than that, I kept to myself, too. I usually had to be FORCED outside.
E
kath:
Once in a blue moon, I ride and love it. I used to be really good friends with a guy who had his own horses. One was a step away from the glue factory, and I would take him for hours on country roads and have a ball.
E
realm:
I would have happily played with your undead baby army!
:-)
E
marcia:
Considering I am such a bad singer, the Grammy was never an option. Even in a make-believe world.
:-)
E
LaDonna:
LOL! I loved those assignments too.
;-)
E
Post a Comment