Keep In Mind

Warning: This is not going to be very good story-wise; there will be lots of grammatical mistakes, run-on sentences, and other abominations of the english language. I'm sorry; I tried to write this essay three or four times, and although I could've easily written some bullshit about when I went to Japan and "found myself" (heh, thanks Hemp), I realized that nothing has really had an impact on me -- or revealed so much of my personal weaknesses as this. I'm going to have to ask just this once that you be a little more kind in reviewing than is typical; normally, I like people being overly critical, but I don't think I can ever re-work this. I wrote it how I felt it, and I really don't want to look at it again. I just need to post it before I delete it and (futilely) try again.

--

Her very first words to me were "You know, this is a really bad idea." It was appropriate; it was November, too, but appropriate is more important in this case. Because what I had concluded, after a month of preparation and intense focus on both my schoolwork on my writing, was a terribly bad idea.

I stared at the computer screen. It was midnight on the dot, and my focus was almost non-existent. I had been so anxious to start my National Novel Writing Month novel that I couldn't really think clearly. There were other things on my mind, too, but at the moment I watched my start bar clock hit "12:00am" I was off like a speeding bullet.

I got to the line "You really need to learn how to write people that don't exist," and Stephanie -- although I always thought of her as Steph, although earlier on she was called Reese (short for Theresa, although why I have a fetish for that name I’ll never know) -- declared her agreement with the line.

"But you're not real," I reminded her.

"Bullshit." That was her response. Even before I had really solidified her character, she was incredibly feisty. Thus began a month that I can only recall in snippets of conversation, abject horror at a distance, and a growing realization that I had indeed pushed myself too far.

Over the next several days, we worked on the fiction and on her. I say we because, at the beginning, it felt more like joint effort than just myself controlling myself in weird ways -- or rather, letting myself give in to unrealistic impulses and impressions. The key to Steph's development was the internet. I found that by having two instances of IRC (a kind of chat protocol) open, with some diligent switching I could have out-and-out conversations with her, and she could have conversations with others. The former was not so terrible; mostly, it was me saying to myself how she was myself, so I was talking to myself. I used that one a lot.

But when she was talking to my friends, a different sort of pattern emerged. She was emotional from the get-go, probably bi-polar. She really liked certain things about my friends that to this day I swear I never noticed before. These were fun exercises, and they really helped channel a sense of being into her. She started to squawk a lot when the main character of my fiction had sex with her character, and I honestly felt a little guilty about it myself, but at the time it made sense. Who knows what I was really thinking back then.

The problem was, after my final projects for the semester were handed out, I was under a lot of pressure. I had just started playing World of Warcraft, for one. I was addicted, but mostly in control. I played every thursday and friday night, and I played with my friends, but I would play come rain or shine. I had declared that 'me' time, and an unfortunate number of people had gotten caught inside it -- and come out worse for the wear. I was writing, and although things had started so smoothly, as I was forced to spend more and more time working on code and dealing with teammates, my story started to suffer. I was trying to find ways out.

It was during those times that She would start to speak to me, and it would be her voice, not mine mimicking hers, and that started to scare me. But it was good to have someone to talk to.

"I think you should drop Nano this year," she said one day. A bright day, outside; I can't recall if I was walking from my job at the Library to home, or from home to my job at the Library, but I remember the street that lined the quad, and I remember that that's where I first thought the idea.

Or she said it. Whatever.

I didn't respond for a while, because I really didn't want to give up. I had given up the year before that, and the year before that. I had something really unique in my relationship with her, something that translated into... well, on the page, it didn't really translate into all that much, but I was growing attached to the spunky girl voice in my head. Of course, the second I thought that, she heard it, and she said "I know I'm not real. You know I'm not real. I told you this was a bad idea. You're not exactly the picture of fine mental health, y'know?"

I had to concede the point; there are stories I don't think I'll ever tell about my spotty history, but suffice it to say, they validated her claim -- my claim. "Still," I finally responded, this time in a mental tone of voice that indicated inward talking as opposed to mental wandering, "I know you wish you were real. I wish you were real. You're not, but... let's keep this going, if only for a few more days, okay?"

"Great. Asshole."

I kept walking; I was really close to my dorm now (or was it the Library?). "Asshole? What did I say?"

"Look, I know I'm 'not real' and all that, but that doesn't mean I had any plans to leave!" That forced me to stop, pinch the bridge of my nose in a highly cliché fashion, and take a deep breath. Had I just told myself that I wasn't going to let myself return to sanity? One foot in front of the other, almost where I needed to be. Yes, yes I had told myself that. Sheepishly, she added, "Sorry. I know this has to be hard, but it's hard on me, too."

Every day, I used her name, her voice a little bit more online. I was withdrawing, and luckily or unluckily, I called out to the girl who had dumped me not three days before the whole experiment started -- I let it slip (rather slyly, I thought at the time) that I was trying something completely new with this year's NaNo, and that I wanted to practice it with her. She was amused.

Sitting on my bed: "So, I'm writing a sort of meta-fiction about a guy who's writing a story about a girl, who exists in his head as a voice, except she shows up in the real world, his real world, anyways, and all sorts of crazy shit starts happening."

Michelle, sitting in my chair, leaning forwards ever so slightly: "Weird."

"So I figured, maybe I can get myself in that mindset. Maybe I can get into this guy's brain, and therefore get into this girl's brain. It was fuckin' crazy, but I figured I'd give it a shot."

I don't remember the rest of the conversation, but when she asked how it went and I explained that I couldn't shut her up, she was -- she was fucking interested. She wanted to talk to Steph. I instantly clammed up and became nervous and fidgety. Even though I explained multiple times that this was just a writing practice, that Steph didn't really exist in my head -- or rather, that she ONLY existed in my head -- Michelle was very kind and calm, and didn't call me any offensive names. I would've called myself some very terrible names, really.

But there was still a barrier, thankfully: I couldn't speak out loud as Steph; a part of my mind realized that if I started physically talking as a girl, then there would be no coming back. My stomach churned at the thought. So when Michelle got online, Stephanie said 'hi!'

I don't remember what we said. I don't remember it at all; I just remember the small bold letters, and I remember myself butting in with italics. It's stupid, but for some reason, font choice seemed very important to me to distinguish between the two of us. I was making borders. I was trying to section her thoughts off into some unknown region of my brain. Who knows what I was trying to do. My projects were proceeding on plan, and I was getting maybe four or five hours of good sleep a night.

The day after Steph talked to Michelle, I realized that I had shown how badly my mind was cracking. I knew it, knew it as plain as day. It's scary to realize you're going insane and that you can't do anything to stop it. Saying it sounds cheap and pathetic; writing it makes me feel like I'm telling, not showing. But there really is no other way to explain that growing tenseness in my chest, or the twitchiness that started to kick in.

Luckily, National Novel Writing Month was also Thanksgiving Week Off Month. I went back home, and I didn't write a single word for three days. Steph continued to berate me in my mind, and I still chatted using both her and myself, but I didn't write -- I couldn't write. Nothing was coming to me. I had started to grow bored with my own insanity, and without the stress of finals or papers or projects I started to drift, or... or something. And then, on wednesday afternoon, I saw an episode of Stargate Atlantis wherein Dr. McKay and some random military chick get sucked up into a Wraith beam, and then when he's spit back out, she's in his head, helping him do things in classic late '80s fashion. It was mildly entertaining, but most of all, it made me realize I wasn't half as clever as I thought I was. I was so irritated that someone out-did me that I didn't write any more. I slapped together an ending in an effort to make myself continue writing, but it didn't work. I was so pissed that Steph kind of stopped talking.

The end of November saw me turning in my final project for Doctor Kuofie, a madman in his own right. I also finished a paper for my Japanese class -- or perhaps it was one of the other minor classes I was taking at the time. Either way, things were finishing. My novel was left uncompleted at just under 20,000 words. Every once in a while, up until winter break, I tried to get Steph back in my mind -- to re-establish that strange mindset where I wasn't myself, or that feeling of personal connection that I just wasn't getting with anyone at the time. I guess I was pretty lonely. By winter I'd almost completely forgotten; by the start of the next semester, it wasn't even an issue -- I'd been sane from the get-go, and it was just me being silly and dealing with my stress in a unique sort of way.

I still miss Steph. I miss her a lot. I had created from my mind the kind of girl I would want to talk to, and I succeeded. I nearly lost my mind -- again -- in an effort to connect to someone after having lost one of my sole connections with the outside world. It's convenient to blame Michelle, but despite how embarassing what I said to her was, what I entrusted her with when I let Stephanie say 'hello,' she wasn't patronizing or insulting at all, and for that I'm very thankful. It helped me realize that my connections with the world were not so tenuous after all. I was able in the end to not only regain my sense of self, but to find what part of me lay in the world beyond myself.

Epilogue: Stranger Than Fiction came out during the next Nanowrimo, and I was amused (14 words!).

--

Zach Lome is currently a programmer for Sentact, who operate a web-based ticket, notification, and survey system for schools and hospitals. The stress of college finals and projects happend to over-prepare him for the working world, where now finds himself bored and unamused. He hasn’t had any run-ins with fictional beings since he started writing for the Write Monkey Write blog, thankfully, unless one of those fictional beings happens to be a genie.

Zach still has plans to write NaNo this year, but is going to shy as far away from meta-fiction as is physically possible -- just in case.

--

Steph still isn’t speaking up much, but she’s glad that Zach’s writing this stuff out. Maybe if people paid more attention to her, she’d actually get to talk with people once in a while. Well, here’s to dreaming! She also wants to say hi to the other Steph, because it’s cool to meet people with the same name as you.

(addendum: Yes, this really happened. No, I could never quite lose that distinction between reality and fiction, although it got terribly, terribly blurry in a not-so-good way. You can read what I wrote at http://www.ilstu.edu/~zslome/writing/nano.rtf , although I warn you, it’s not very good. Finally, the last bit is a joke -- don’t worry about my mental health, and for God’s sake, don’t ask to talk to Steph. Please.)