My process

It's not like I don't know that I have an easier time getting to the heart of things when I talk things out. My husband used to tell people that I was an "external processor." Actually he threatened someone with it. Just a local vendor that was screwing with us, but he basically said that we lived in a small community, that I had a lot of friends and that I tended to talk. It was apparently all HE needed to say. Whatever.

Anyway, I was trying to decide what the first scene of the new proposal I was working on would be. I had two good candidates. I'd been turning them over in my head and I'd half decided that I would write both of them and then see which one felt right. Then I started talking to my son about it. After just a few minutes, I realized he was totally right. I needed to start with Melina's search for her werewolf friend, Paul, and not in spin class with her mother. I congratulated Alex on being ever so perspicacious and thanked him for helping me.

He laughed, pointed out that he hadn't actually said anything and then reminisced about several other items that I'd done exactly the same thing. He then returned to his usual state of ignoring me and watching the basketball finals.

So apparently that's my process. What I don't get is, if I don't need the other person to say anything, why can't I get the same clarity by just saying it out loud to myself? And if there's no one there to hear it, why can't I just think it through? Why do I have to subject the people I love the most to my meandering half-formed thoughts? And what is it about it that makes me thing that they've give me the answers?