Aphantasia - What the Heck?

I teased this in my last blog and promised to come back to comment on it, so... Ta-da!

I recently read about this malady and thought to myself *Horrors!* Aphantasia is the inability to "see" images in thought. Such as, if someone says to you "imagine a tree" you wouldn't be able to summon the image of a tree--or its setting, or its leaves or bark--in your mind, only some subject-specific words about trees in general. 

Wait! Whut???

The author further went on to explain how he also couldn't "hear" music or sounds in his thoughts. You know the term "earworm" -- that favorite song that you just can't get out of your head? Yeah. Doesn't happen. The author mentioned the Star Wars theme. When I think "Star Wars theme," I can absolutely hear those iconic first notes of an inspiring overture like I was the third chair clarinet inside my mind. It must be horrible to not have the ability to do that. And yet, he was quite far along in his life before he figured out he was lacking in the sensory imagination department.

Yet, he still was able to successfully write.

How?  I mean....HOW?

He explains in his post. It has something to do with what he calls "grey words."

I found it utterly fascinating.

Obviously, I don't have aphantasia (thank the Good Lord!) because when I write, or pre-write, or work on basic story context or scene ideas, I do it in my head in living technicolor and stereo sound. When I'm head-writing a scene in my current work, I can see the deep aquamarine eyes and subtle smile of Nakondus. I can hear his voice. I can picture Shanna's shining red hair and confused expression when she poses a question to him. It's a mind-movie for me. I couldn't even begin to fathom how someone could write without this capability. And yet the author talking about discovering this handicap...well, let's just say he's done a lot for an imagination-challenged soul.

I won't regurgitate his lengthy FB post here (which included texting snippets of his dawning revelation with other peers and a fascinating dialogue on how his mind does work), but I will drop the link below if you'd like to check out all his musing on the surprising revelation. Be sure to check out his credentials at the end. (Um...wow.)

Aphantasia: How it Feels to be Blind in your Mind

I'd like to segway that into a note that this blog has now developed its own form of aphantasia. It seems I can no longer post images, for some unknown reason. I apologize profusely, since I love to break up the long blocks of text by illustrating with related pictures, but that's no longer possible. (And getting help from Blogger...good luck with that.)  So sadly, this "blog" is going to be a bit bland going forward, though I will keep working the problem -- like Mark Watney in a Martian dust storm.

Hope you have a day filled with vibrant thoughts. I'll be Bach. 

I've Resurfaced -- Hiya!

So...new post. SURPRISE! I know it's been months since I've created any new content for this blog, but that's an indication of where my mind has been. Namely...elsewhere.

To just scratch the surface, here are three of the reasons. 

Lack of Focus

My mind needed a mental break from the tedious and overwhelming fire hose of information I needed to process simply to be an author. The industry has changed a lot and I've been left in the dust. Information such as how I needed to target my ads and all the lovely landmines FB was throwing at authors (ugh!), the art and mysticism of how to create effective keywords (gah!), how I had to have a brand and before I could determine what my brand was I needed to do semesters of soul-searching and honing of my product (no thanks!), plus other nefarious and annoying self-education requirements that I'd probably need to get the equivalent of a bachelors degree to process.. Needless to say, it left me creatively bereft. Dammit Jim, I'm a writer not an advertising agency. And I just want to write! 

It seems I no longer have the desire nor the mental fortitude to spend the lion's share of my time trying to market my work and sell more books. I need to do something different. I'm just not sure what "different" at this point in my career. 

Also...to further add to my distraction, our horse won the Preakness this year (not to mention a couple of other major races that most of you would not know or care about because they weren't Triple Crown races). That's a subject and a topic that doesn't really fit this blog, so I won't go into detail, but let me tell you -- it was a MAJOR life event! It impacted me and my spouse and our large partnership group in ways I can't begin to describe. It was a dream come true that I had wished for since I was six years old, but didn't realize the impossibility of my wish at that young age. So yeah, never, ever, in a million years did I think it would happen to us. But it did. And....well, WOW. Just WOW! I'm a writer but I can't even communicate what it meant to us, what the horse means to us, what it meant to have a legendary trainer training him, and a jockey so new to the sport he hadn't even ridden a horse four years ago and to watch him cross that finish line as a newly minted classic winner. Being a part of the partnership, the horse, the team, the experience -- all of it -- was a huge blessing from God. I must give credit where credit is due. 

But I digress...  

Lack of Enthusiasm

I've also been enormously un-motivated because I seem to be having a struggle of the soul over what I'm now inspired to write, which is not books filled with faith-challenged and Godless characters. The last two years have shown me that the Almighty is at work in my life in a multitude of ways, and my past books are a bit (to say the least) dissident to my current state of faith. My dilemma is that I'm well into a lengthy series of books and audience-wise, I'd be changing horses mid-stream. (There's that horse theme again). 

The Roadblock of "Business"

I'm now at the point where my next four books are large volumes that will cost me far more to have fully edited than they may ever earn back. (We're talking thousands and thousands. And no, the vast majority of writers don't make that much on their books.) So...I've been thinking...if I'm not going to regain my expenses maybe I should just self-edit and publish them as free works online. I'm still wrestling with all the ramifications of that decision, and what to do with my previously published work if I do go forward. I'm at the "still computing" phase of that concept. And it's boggling. Stay tuned. 

I'll try to be a lot better about communication via this blog, and throwing some different content out there -- progress, excerpts, random thoughts, etc. I'd ask for opinions or feedback, but no one seems to comment on blogs anymore so I'll skip that part (though you're always welcome to comment should you wish) [ ::: Insert begging emoji that doesn't exist here ::: ] 

Thanks for listening to my info dump. (Thank goodness I try to avoid this cardinal sin in books, huh?)

I'm working on a blog about Aphantasia that shocked me. Stop back to see what that's all about. 

Have a great week!