Crazy eyes, indeed

The trouble with writing fiction is that it builds on itself.

Not in a good way, most of the time, if you're me. I've reached right now what I call the "fractal" stage of writing, in which each train of thought spirals off into three more thoughts, all of which need fleshing out, and then once you go down that road you have to deal with all the spirals that come off the first spirals, and then there are exponentially yet more spirals until oh my god you're telling a completely different story than you were a couple thousand words ago, and in the meantime it's four AM and you're really supposed to be writing a paper about Irish emigration in the 1980's, except nothing is more interesting than the shit going on in your head, and also now there are all these thoughts that came from the spirals, so you might as well just keep writing since you'll be thinking about them anyway, and then Jesus Christ the birds are chirping, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU GO TO BED, APPARENTLY SLEEP IS IMPORTANT.

The fractal stage of writing is actually fun, really, if you're neurotic and into masochism, and don't have, like, other things to do, or friends, or a job, or a social life - all of which (I like to think) I have. Of course, the fractal stage of writing is immediately followed by the crazy eyes stage of writing, which then leads directly into the I HATE EVERYTHING stage of writing, at which point you're pretty much fucked and you should go have a glass of wine and write something else.

The point is this: right now, there are so, so many things I should be doing instead of what I am doing (see aforementioned paper, PS it has to be twenty pages and is due on Wednesday, I dare you to guess how many I have). I'm not doing them.

Crazy eyes, indeed.