I've never been diagnosed, but I know I have OCD. I've spent hours in a store, there only to buy a couple items, but I get crazy trying to reorganize their jewelry display by ring size and color, or books by author ("waah, who put Steven King next to W.E.B. Griffin?"), or sometimes just reorganizing items by size. Like the photo frames at Dollar Tree. I have a big problem walking by those.
I wish my OCD ran toward other things, like keeping my carpet vacuumed, or washing the dishes spotless. Sadly, I could not care less about those things. Meanwhile, my library is alphabetical by genre (fiction, non-fiction, with a separate category for novelized movies and Matt's huge Star Trek collection). My CDs are also by artist and genre (jazz, classical, modern, I don't go too crazy because of cross-genre artists), and my DVDs are alphabetized by title. I used to alphabetized my spices, but now I clump them by cuisine (Italian spices, Asian spices, Mexican spices, etc.) Maybe it's because I worked in the school library starting in 4th grade, but I'm obsessed with ABCs.
OCD and writing are a hard mix. Usually, I start with just writing. I get an idea, sometimes plot it out, often not, and GO! When I'm in that mode, I write, and I don't stop, not for food, not for sleep. I've gone for weeks on 3-hour naps because I'm up all night writing until I'm literally typing in my sleep (crazy weird crap written in the moments of fading consciousness) then jolt awake with a great idea and write some more... for 21 hours straight.
Editing gets fun with OCD. I've read that most writers hate editing their stories. They have this great tale, and they don't want to change it. Steven King suggests shelving new manuscripts for months. Yeah, I have to do that in the final stage, but I still go into a frenzy when I'm in "Edit Mode." I've been known to sporadically scrap a newly written manuscript and rewrite the whole thing, all because I came up with a great idea. Don't worry, I keep multiple drafts, because sometime my mania-driven "great idea" turns out to be really stupid.
I obsess over grammar, yet I speak with some Southern peculiarities. "It needed done" is my husband's favorite. I never catch them, not after years.
"Why did you rewrite this? It was a great chapter!"
"It needed fixed."
O.o "Do you mean... it needed to be fixed?"
>_< (grrr) "Yeah..." I also obsess over my character's names, often for stupid reasons. For example, in my manuscript Daughters of Ashby, all of the characters and place names are after trees, with a few shrubs thrown in because I liked the names. While some are obvious (Linden, Hazel, Willow, Mimosa, Palmetto), and others are not too hard to figure out (Olivetta, Betulla, Quennel, Garnock, Mandel, Avalbane, Feàrn, Verbina), some of my favorite names are really obscure... probably not even names for people (Serenoa, Catalpa, Quercus, Tilia, Cedrus, Zelkova, Quillaja). I did hours upon hours of research. In every edit, I change at least one person's name to fit a plant that better describes their personality. It's probably all a waste, but I find research fun. Why all trees? I have no frickin' idea. I needed a bunch of names, so I looked on some baby name website, searched for tree names, and from there it all went crazy. I can count on one hand how many things are not named after trees (one is a horse).
So what am I obsessing over now? Editing! (insert maniacal grin of impending doom) Adding chapters, removing chapters, rummaging through old manuscripts written from before I discovered that publishers don't want 300k-wordcount tomes and breaking them into trilogies. I'm currently working on what I guess will be the second book of the Blue Fire Dragon series (yes, series... sadly, it looks to be 7 books long, not at all what I wanted!) I'm bouncing every week or so between Daughters of Ashby, Blue Fire, Ghost Coast, and sometimes I try to add a page or two to my eternally-on-hiatus Shadowstrider, which must one day be faced with breaking it down to publishable size, as much as I hate doing that AGAIN!
I just can't keep on task. Sometimes I obsess over a story, sometimes I obsess over a process. I feel like I'm drifting aimlessly, but I know at least some work is getting done, even if it's in a discursive way.
Showing posts with label OCD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OCD. Show all posts
Friday, September 10, 2010
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
A Peek Into My OCD World
Here is a classic example of why I have not published Book One of the Shadowstrider series (I know many of you are waiting for it, but be patient with me a little longer).
Okay, as you may (or likely may not) know, Shadowstrider is a multi-generational tale about a Native American family facing adventures only possible in the realm of science fiction (aliens, space pirates, psychic genocidal maniacs, and all that jazz). Many of the family members are religious, following the beliefs of Thekoni, the Great Eagle, and praying in their native language, Rovesia. I invented Rovesia to fill in the need for more "authentic" Native American scenes. Rather than simply say the character prayed to Thekoni, I actually write out the prayer in the native language followed by a translation. When a character gets highly emotions, they may curse in Rovesia (which are usually longwinded hexes). It is a language still in development, although I have a fairly good dictionary in the making.
For the most part, Rovesia was created on an "as needed" basis. In other words, if I want a character to say "The sky is blue" but I don't yet have a word for "sky," I create one based upon root terms (by the way, the phrase would be "Hidumoni udan ama"). This tactic has obvious flaws.
One, I only have so many root terms, so words can get complicated. I even have two characters jokingly compete for the longest Rovesia term they can think of; my favorite is a tie between aawethea'mojadu, or "wolf," literally "silver claw," and Hidumonifawawe, which is their name for the constellation Aquarius, literally "Sky-Jar."
Two, I sometimes use words not realizing the intent behind it. For example, I'll use an existing term for "cold" without double-checking if the root terms imply callousness or climate. I finally corrected this error by putting literal translations in my dictionary... such a hassle.
Three, I often create a new word although I already have a similar existing term, especially when I'm thinking too much in English. For instance, as you'll see below, I came up with a word for "correct" and a word for "true" separately, with totally different root meanings, although they mean the same in English.
What can I say, I'm not JRR Tolkien!
Alrighty, so I'm working on Book 12--that's the last book in the series, honestly--and as I write what is the most common Rovesia invocation, the morning prayer, I realize a glaring error. One of the lines goes "Fill my life with discernment and true answers." I sort of did a "head tilt" at the term "true answers." I always hated that phrase but could not come up with a better translation. The original term was duko koye, which has a literal translation of "bottom-answer (true)" and "answers." Obviously, some distasteful repetition going on there. So I considered it for a moment and thought "'true answers' means truth. I don't have a word for 'truth' yet because I always used duko koye. Truth is when all answers are correct. So why not one word, dukoye?" Directly translating dukoye would be impossible, and "true" and "correct" are adjectives and therefore incapable of being pluralized (-ye is a pluralization suffix). So the closest meaning would be "truth," changing the adjective into a noun.
A minor issue? Maybe, but I'm rather fond of my invented language and I want it to be perfect, or at least comprehensive. As I said, this is the most commonly-said prayer, so I want it to make sense.
So I looked in my handy-dandy Rovesia-English dictionary (a cumbersome text file at the moment) and realized another error. I have duko which means "true" and udsi which means "correct." But those have the same meaning. Crap! So I decided that, whereas duko is more in reference to an answer, udsi carries the implication of living one's live in wisdom (udsi literally means "to be wise"). Which means all references, in all twelve books, to both udsi and duko have to be examined to determine which intent I had in mind.
Luckily, I keep a list of all Rovesia phrases I use, which is a pain in the neck to document but so handy in mass corrections like this. Thankfully, udsi is not used too often. Duko is another matter, as the morning prayer with its duko koye phrase occurs at least once in every book. Due to sheer size and my computer whining about loading anything over 200 pages, I have my novels broken into three parts. Which means 36 files to search and adjust. When you add in my many files with notes for the series, that means over 40 pages to check. This might take half the day.
And this is why I have not published Book One. If I had, then the term duko koye would be in print and unable to change without making a new edition. Such is my OCD approach to writing. When I am satisfied with the whole series, including the languages I invented to give the tale a level of authenticity, then I will publish it. Until then... patience, grasshoppers, patience!
Okay, as you may (or likely may not) know, Shadowstrider is a multi-generational tale about a Native American family facing adventures only possible in the realm of science fiction (aliens, space pirates, psychic genocidal maniacs, and all that jazz). Many of the family members are religious, following the beliefs of Thekoni, the Great Eagle, and praying in their native language, Rovesia. I invented Rovesia to fill in the need for more "authentic" Native American scenes. Rather than simply say the character prayed to Thekoni, I actually write out the prayer in the native language followed by a translation. When a character gets highly emotions, they may curse in Rovesia (which are usually longwinded hexes). It is a language still in development, although I have a fairly good dictionary in the making.
For the most part, Rovesia was created on an "as needed" basis. In other words, if I want a character to say "The sky is blue" but I don't yet have a word for "sky," I create one based upon root terms (by the way, the phrase would be "Hidumoni udan ama"). This tactic has obvious flaws.
One, I only have so many root terms, so words can get complicated. I even have two characters jokingly compete for the longest Rovesia term they can think of; my favorite is a tie between aawethea'mojadu, or "wolf," literally "silver claw," and Hidumonifawawe, which is their name for the constellation Aquarius, literally "Sky-Jar."
Two, I sometimes use words not realizing the intent behind it. For example, I'll use an existing term for "cold" without double-checking if the root terms imply callousness or climate. I finally corrected this error by putting literal translations in my dictionary... such a hassle.
Three, I often create a new word although I already have a similar existing term, especially when I'm thinking too much in English. For instance, as you'll see below, I came up with a word for "correct" and a word for "true" separately, with totally different root meanings, although they mean the same in English.
What can I say, I'm not JRR Tolkien!
Alrighty, so I'm working on Book 12--that's the last book in the series, honestly--and as I write what is the most common Rovesia invocation, the morning prayer, I realize a glaring error. One of the lines goes "Fill my life with discernment and true answers." I sort of did a "head tilt" at the term "true answers." I always hated that phrase but could not come up with a better translation. The original term was duko koye, which has a literal translation of "bottom-answer (true)" and "answers." Obviously, some distasteful repetition going on there. So I considered it for a moment and thought "'true answers' means truth. I don't have a word for 'truth' yet because I always used duko koye. Truth is when all answers are correct. So why not one word, dukoye?" Directly translating dukoye would be impossible, and "true" and "correct" are adjectives and therefore incapable of being pluralized (-ye is a pluralization suffix). So the closest meaning would be "truth," changing the adjective into a noun.
A minor issue? Maybe, but I'm rather fond of my invented language and I want it to be perfect, or at least comprehensive. As I said, this is the most commonly-said prayer, so I want it to make sense.
So I looked in my handy-dandy Rovesia-English dictionary (a cumbersome text file at the moment) and realized another error. I have duko which means "true" and udsi which means "correct." But those have the same meaning. Crap! So I decided that, whereas duko is more in reference to an answer, udsi carries the implication of living one's live in wisdom (udsi literally means "to be wise"). Which means all references, in all twelve books, to both udsi and duko have to be examined to determine which intent I had in mind.
Luckily, I keep a list of all Rovesia phrases I use, which is a pain in the neck to document but so handy in mass corrections like this. Thankfully, udsi is not used too often. Duko is another matter, as the morning prayer with its duko koye phrase occurs at least once in every book. Due to sheer size and my computer whining about loading anything over 200 pages, I have my novels broken into three parts. Which means 36 files to search and adjust. When you add in my many files with notes for the series, that means over 40 pages to check. This might take half the day.
And this is why I have not published Book One. If I had, then the term duko koye would be in print and unable to change without making a new edition. Such is my OCD approach to writing. When I am satisfied with the whole series, including the languages I invented to give the tale a level of authenticity, then I will publish it. Until then... patience, grasshoppers, patience!
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