[Jamestown1630]

I'll try it.

I had a friend when I was young who was a very talented artist. She told me that the 'trance' thing happened to her, too - that there was a process that started with preparing her brushes, paints, etc. - her artistic 'mise en place' - during which at some point she would go into a sort of trance and begin work.

My friend, and one other songwriter who expressed the process in the same way, are the only ones I've heard this from and with whose experience I've identified; but I'm not well-read in the literature regarding creative process, and it may be quite common.

[mairdie]

I write in one of two modes: trance or pain. I’ve written massive amounts of technical and fiction and non-fiction. Sometimes it flows and you enter this other world. Sometimes I write a sentence or two, get up and pace the room, then sit and write another two sentences. My latest writing has been of the painful type, but I’m hoping the smoothness will return for the next project. It’s SO much easier on the spirit.

A fond memory is of writing my first movie script and realizing as I was just a page from ending it that my writing was slowing down because I knew that when I typed the last period, I’d leave that world and I really didn’t want to. Then I typed the last period. And the world really did disappear. I still miss it.

I think your instincts are perfect. We aren’t unusual at all. But a lot of us get off on process as well as product, so we get twice the fun. What joy to know someone else who loves words.