I’ve been thinking about conversations lately. Maybe even arguments, you could say. I’ve always been the type of person who talking things out with people helps get my creative juices flowing. But have you ever had a heated discussion with someone that either excites you or (maybe) angers you so much you leave said person’s presence and continue the “discussion” in your head.
Maybe this is a writer thing. I don’t know for sure because I’ve pretty much always been writing. But this is always something I’ve done. When I was a crazy eight year old, my sister would pick on me because she would hear me talking in the bathroom (the one place a kid can go to truly be alone), and little me would just be arguing with her still while scrubbing my hands or whatnot.
When you’re eight you don’t have the wherewithal to realize that only people with a few screws loose argue with themselves in bathrooms.
No. No. As an adult writer, I now have those continued arguments in my head.
But this brings me to the crux of my suggestion. For such an angst-y person such as I, there’s got to be a better outlet for this pent up passion, right? Then again, whenever I put my arguments down into short story form (or some form of creative-writing-something), it sounds rather like a prosaic Russian novel— almost like those deep wheeling stories with all these moral, political, and economic insights you find in Dostoevsky. (Not that I’m saying my thoughts are any where near as deep as his. I’m just talking vibes.)
Maybe sometimes we writers just need to write the total-crap-argument scene to get the heat out of our blood. I don’t know. But I’d be interested to have this conversation with a fellow writer.
Maybe we’ll still be arguing it three days later in my head and on paper.
© 2022 Katie Baker
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Seeking Prose 
Katie, this is sixh a great question. I’m not saying I’m a lengthy author but simply one that can have DAYS of conversation in my head. I do find that writing helps–if only to stop the cycling that occurs (sometimes my argument or conversation actually has about 5 sentences but these cycle over and over). The other thing that I’ve heard about is that our spirits and unconscious do not know that these extra conversations have not actually happened. In the case of heated arguments, our psyche assumes that these are real. So we can actually end up wounding ourselves again and again with words from other people that have not occurred. This happens too, when we wake up from a dream and are angry with someone because of what they did in the dream world. It’s actually a fascinating topic!
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Our minds do work in interesting ways. I’ve always found dreams a cool topic as well. And for those conversations I can’t put down, I definitely find writing helps. Writing helps for so many things in my experience.
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