Oops! Sorry, What Did You Say? Or Daydreaming at the Most Inopportune Moments.

Sitting there and staring forward. Hearing the words, seeing the motions. Like watching television right before you close your eyes to fall asleep. The sound is there. You have a visual.

But there's something else. The sounds are clearer, the images more vivid. You're there, in your seat, but you're somewhere else too. Almost as though you've projected part of yourself to another place - maybe even another time.

Then comes something to shatter the lulling atmosphere, a voice, a bell, a nudge. In harsh contrast you're brought back to the space in which your journey began. Everything's clear, the sound's crisp. You're refocusing.

There were many times I'd be sitting in school and a teacher would ask me a question. It was like someone flicked a switch. I came back to my surroundings and the refocusing began. I'd usually have to ask, "What was the question?" Or rediscover where I was before gathering my things to leave class.

What seemed impossible to change when I was young isn't so hard now. I guess that's a good thing. I still have the tendency, but I think I've become almost expert in controlling it. I found the control panel and can hit pause. Maybe this works because I have times that I can let myself go.

I'm guessing that every writer of fiction has some similar experience with daydreaming. I've noticed that for me there is often one thread that repeats in my daydreams, the film that is on permanent loop - at least until I've written it down. In the writing of the daydream there seems to be some kind of a liberation. As though my subconscious knows that I've now made a commitment to the scene which allows my mind to move on to another dream. Sometimes just another part of the same dream.

It is often not until the dreams are in writing that I feel a forward motion in the story. Sometimes I've been caught in the same scene for years, because I haven't let it progress beyond my head - to put the scenes into words.

I did that just the other day. I spent about an hour writing notes and short scenes that seemed to be bursting in my mind. It's now added to a file of similar stores. Plots that I've yet to develop, characters waiting to be discovered and given their full form. The place I was for a while. The place I plan to go back and visit again.

I do it out of necessity. I can't do it all at once, I know that. But sometimes it's hurts a little to have to suppress the urge to pull one out and put another aside. A necessity in the interest of completing a manuscript, I'll admit, but that doesn't make it any less difficult.

The commitment is there. It's on paper - well, word processing file - and one day I'll pick it up as my next project. I plan to return to each of those places and to visit those characters again. To see their stories through.