We’re All Mad Here…
I sometimes find myself wondering why I'm drawn to what can, for the most part, be a very lonely profession. Writing, like reading, is a solitary experience only being shared after the event. It’s not that I'm unsociable, though I'm happy in my own company, but I suppose if people saw the ramblings going on my head they’d send me to the loony bin. But that’s where we live isn't, us writers, we I've in the madness of buzzing ideas and random thoughts and phrases we file away for use at a later date.
We observe the world around us, we absorb the mundane and twist into strange shapes transferring them to the blank pages we stare at. I suppose I view writing as an escape from reality, just as I escape into books. Reality is tedious and usually inconvenient, our own minds on the other hand are fantastical wonders of nature. Our own minds trick us, embellish our memories and sometime frighten us. These are our tools as writers, telling stories that connect the two.
I'm the kind of writer that twists and moulds my own memories an experiences, changing them sometimes in ways that even I don’t recognise them any more. Although I've found in hindsight I put much more of myself into my writing than I think. To the point where I have sometimes gone back and added new memories I have harvested from others to distance myself. It is easy, for me, to turn experiences into fantastical situations on the page. Perhaps it is that once on the page the words cease to be ramblings in my brain. I myself would discourage anyone from taking a stroll from my mind, though I imagine everyone else feels that way also. I often find myself using writing as some sort of therapy putting my dark and twisted ideas down on paper the same way I did with drawing when I was younger.
I envy writers who can just sit in front of their screen and type, knowing what the end product will be. I am not a writer who plans. A few weeks ago I was put on the spot to sit and write, and so I sat there spinning around in my chair until the words came to me. It may have only taken a couple hours to those observing me, but it felt like an eternity to me. I consider myself an instinctual writer, I write down the rambling from my head as they come to me. I write them down anywhere whether it’s one of my 50,000 notebooks, my phone, or my arms and legs. I talk and argue with myself both internally and out loud. In short I'm most defiantly mad.
‘…when you find yourself locked onto an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places where the screaming is unbearable, remember there’s always madness. Madness is the emergency exit…’ — The Joker (from The Killing Joke)
This quote is one of many that sticks with me, in my opinion it sums up the life of a writer. When walking through my own mind turning toward a dark corner where my fears are housed, I know a sane person would jump back to reality as a comfort. Instead I smile, unlock the door and revel in my madness feverishly filling the blank page in front of me.
