Detail Oriented

Perhaps this stems from my love for writing short stories, but I have always been detail oriented.
Put me in any room and I will instantly start surveying it. Size, structure, accessories, color, texture, curtains, blinds, and view…the list goes on.
Or perhaps it stems from my obsession with old houses?
Either way, I have always gone into elaborate detail with anything. I am currently working on a story where – go figure – the characters live in an old house. I try to rein in my overactive imagination but to no avail. Therefore I pour onto the pages intricate details about a house that came from my own imagination, but somehow seems as real to me as if I was walking its halls.
I sometimes wonder if I put too much detail into my stories. When it pertains to the characters themselves I am often verbose with explanations. I form a mental image in my mind of what I think they look like, or what the buildings look like, and it’s like if I don’t get every last morsel of every last detail onto the paper, readers won’t fully understand the character or the building, or form their own mental picture of the two and I will have failed both myself and the readers.
I guess I could tip my hat to Krista’s blog entitled Lost In Thought. In her blog she wrote about over thinking things. I’m not sure if the above paragraphs about my writing habits would be a symptom of over thinking or not. But for some of you reading this post, I’ll bet what I’m writing looks neither detail-oriented nor over-thought but just…plain strange!
Going back to the whole detail thing, when I did my second English paper on Z-Spot I formed another mental image of it in my mind. And yes, again, I felt like if I didn’t get every last detail down in that image onto the paper I was failing myself, and people wouldn’t understand the shop as much. Is it an impulse to write so verbosely about something? Is it unnecessary? I’ll admit, when I write I tend to throw my entire self into the pages, whether it is a paper for English class or one of my own short stories. Writing has always been that one outlet where I unleash my overactive imagination and spill all of those intricate details onto the pages. It’s a place where I can paint every stroke of color; draw in every line and curve of the mental images that form in my mind. For who’s benefit? I don’t have a clue! When I started writing short stories in middle school I had no idea who I was writing for. I just wanted to write. It’s the same way now. Albeit someday I hope to eventually send in one of them and find that mystery audience I have been writing for all my life.
But how do my detail oriented habits affect my every day life? I am constantly surveying a room, seeing what has changed and what hasn’t. I can’t feel comfortable in a room until I’ve surveyed its every inch.
Perhaps this all sounds obsessive to you, or even maniacal. Just as I go in depth with all of my stories, so have I inadvertently gone in depth with this blog. All I can say is…it’s a habit that I’ll most likely never break and which will keep inserting itself into my blog posts no matter what I do to stop it.