I was just thinking about this like a few days ago and thought it might make a cool blog post. I don’t know if anyone else does it and I don’t really know why I do it.
You know how you can be sitting in class/at work (depending on how old you are, lol) thinking, and then you reach a thought where you catch yourself and start paying attention again? Do you keep thinking about the thing you were just thinking about? Some people normally continue to think about it as they go to work. I don’t.
Instead of changing my topic of thought to whatever comes to mind next, I try to trace it. I ask myself, “What led to me thinking about this?” Like, let me try to remember... A lot of times I forget these as soon as I finish tracing them. OH! Okay, I’ll go with something that happened last night.
As I was trying to go to sleep (prime thought tracing time) I caught myself thinking of an event in seventh grade, when I was in the middle of writing FLAME DANCER. I had been on Chapter 6 if I remember correctly, and I wanted to use the word ‘miraculous’, but I wasn’t quite sure how to spell it since I was longhand-ing this. I asked my teacher how it was spelled and one of my classmates asked why the hell I was trying to use words I couldn’t spell. (I still don’t like this kid. >.>)
Anyway, I thought, “How in the hell did I start thinking about this?” Then I traced it. Before that, I’d been thinking about the event in which I’d wanted to use the word ‘miraculous’—my main antagonist had caught a fireball on his sword and made the fireball disappear.
Before that, I’d been thinking about how in the sequel to FLAME DANCER he’d been able to uphold a clash with a frigging Indiana-Jones-style boulder—with his (sort of flimsy-looking) sword. (Of course, at this point in my thought tracing, I’m thinking, “lol, it’s a good thing his sword is infused with the power of an almighty and invincible element of lore because how else would he do this crap”)
And before that I’d been imagining one of the fights this character had in the third book with his archrival and thinking about one of their clashes. After that, I reached the CATALYST of this thought tracing.
I’d just gotten to bed and told myself I was going to listen to a few songs on my iPod, so I was going through shuffle and I came to one of the songs in which they fought. So I started to imagine how that fight could go, which led to the imagined swordplay, which led to old clashes his lol godmoddish sword could uphold, which finally led to the time where I’d tried to use the word miraculous.
I just think this is a kind of unique exercise. I don’t know if it benefits anything I do, but it’d just something I do. I thought I’d share it; it makes for a sort of interesting topic. X3 Sorry I haven’t posted anything of relevance for the past week or two. I just suddenly lost a lot of drive. With that, have a nice Monday! (School just started for me. I am NOT having a nice Monday.)
Woah... that was long but awesome :) I do the SAME EXACT THING. I keep think and thinking and then I'm like "What the heck? Where did I come up with that?" and even sometimes when me and a couple of other people just talk, and the conversation takes a WILD tangent. We try retracing ourselves and we fill in the blanks for each other like a mystery, and once we figure out the starting thought, we're like "YES!" It's quite fun :)
ReplyDeleteIt's just like "SUCCESS~" whenever you figure it out! XD
DeleteLOL, Ive totally done this, often as I lie in bed, wanting to fall asleep. Sometimes it feels like the thoughts race to their inevitable conclusion with the force of a hurricane!
ReplyDeleteAlso, I feel it's my Old Lady Duty to tell you that Mondays are *never* nice, and they only get worse as you age. Just sayin'. ;-)
Some Dark Romantic
Oh God... *Starts building a fort* GO AWAY MONDAY ): Sometimes I think thoughts don't like to be traced! XD
DeleteI do indeed do this! I like to know where thoughts come from; it may come in handy if ever I need some good thoughts on demand. (Some of my speculation on the subject can be found in this short story of mine: http://lunastationquarterly.com/issue-010/train-thought )
ReplyDeleteSometimes I like to trace other people's thoughts, too. Like this time when one of my uncles was in my house, in the room with the map of U.S. on the wall. And one minute, we're talking about the map. And the next minute, we're talking about the "Avatar" movie. And I thought to myself, *I know what you did that, Uncle.* Because on the map was a city named Nauvoo, and the tall blue people in "Avatar" are called the Na'Vi (or however they spell it), and the sound of the one was reminiscent of the other.
Mind you, there is always the possibility that Uncle's brain took a totally different path. But I like the guess I've got. (:
I could come up with other stories/examples/etc., but this the comment section, not a blog unto itself. X)
P.S. -- You don't have to be a spelling bee champ to use whichever words you feel are appropriate. ...just so long as you double check the spelling afterward. (;
Ooo I loved the short story! XD The ending is SO PERFECT.
DeleteHa! I've never done that before trying to trace another person's thoughts. Na'vi is correct (: I think your guess is a pretty good one. Sounds like fun to try out!
Haha, yes. Spelling checks are a godsend. <3