How I Learned... #3: How My Brain Works

Seeker of the One True Radish

OR

How I Learned to Ignore Things

I'm a big fan of Sherlock Holmes. Have been since I was about, oh, thirteen. And two particular quotations from the stories about him have always been etched into my brain:

"I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. ... Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order; it is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. ... It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones." (A Study in Scarlet; Chapter Two: The Science of Deduction)

"Do you know, Watson," said he, "that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject." (The Adventure of the Copper Beeches)

My own special subject is, in the main, that of writing, and specifically, writing slightly off-beat speculative fiction. (I used to call it science fiction, but then Science and I had a long talk and we decided it would be better for us to end our relationship before one of us got hurt or time started to dilate.) Therefore, I tend to gravitate towards information and entertainment, and sometimes even people, that I think I'll be able to utilize in my writing. I love libraries, museums of all kinds, antique shops. I also like country fairs, RenFaires, and music festivals. I'm very picky about my choices of books, television programs, movies and music. All this gives my personal tastes an eclectic, but at the same time, a very narrow field.

Which is why the phrases "You don't know who ____ is?!" and "You've never heard of _____?!" tend to annoy me. It's a constant irritant, especially in high school and college. Eventually it got to the point where I was actively cultivating a reputation for living under a rock, so that a quizzical expression was all that was needed for people talking around me to stop and explain, or just say "April doesn't get it," and move on to another topic.

Don't get me wrong, if I want more information, I'll ask for it (and God help you). But when it comes to say, music, the world is not going to end if I don't know every piece of minutia about a particular singer or group. For example, I like Queen and I like their music and I think Freddy Mercury was awesome on toast. Fabulous toast. But I could care less who their drummer is. (I do know who all the Beatles are, but I think that's one of those things you eventually uncover whether you listen to them or not.) There are also a lot of cartoons that I never watched growing up, and as a child of the 80s, I should be ashamed of that, stuff like Transformers, He-Man and/or She-ra, and Thundercats. I just wasn't allowed that much TV time as a kid, and frankly the animation hurt my eyes.

This actually has a lot to do with why I don't watch a lot of comedy. Well, anything, really, but comedy in particular. It's basically because I can't do anything with it. My husband adores Monty Python, but I can only take it in very small bits, because somewhere in the back of my head, I find myself thinking, "Wow, this is such a waste of time. I mean, it's drop-dead funny an' all, but I could be doing something creative right now." Of course, this is just my personal opinion, and I really do enjoy Python, but it's not something I'll actively seek out. Comedic movies are the same; they just don't do it for me. And yet I love stand-up comedy. Go figure.

I also dislike most dramatic movies—partially because of the time factor, but also because I'm a novelist at heart, and I tend to become over-invested in characters and plot, and the simplification needed to wrap up a story in the standard 90-120 minutes of the average dramatic film just doesn't cut it for me. It's one of the reason I'll willingly subject myself to the convolutions of authors like Hugo and Dickens: the payoff takes forever, and I love that.

I will watch certain dramatic shows, but just to prove that it makes no sense inside my head, I prefer dramas with a vein of comedy (NCIS springs to mind), I think because in real life, there's always funny moments. You need that humor to lighten the dark times, and conversely, seriousness makes levity that much more amusing.

Really, what this ramble boils down to is the fact that I have no capacity to relax and just stop thinking about writing for a few hours. And if someone is trying to entice me into watching or listening to something I have no interest in, then no amount of cajoling is going to help them.

I'm with Holmes on this one. There just isn't enough room in my brain.