YOU ARE NOT MAD, YOU ARE A WRITER!

AUTHOR'S CORNER;

YOU ARE NOT MAD, YOU ARE A WRITER!

Ever questioned your sanity?  Have you ever stopped for a second, a God damn split hair of a second and stared at your computer screen and wondered if you are actually normal?

I mean, what are you doing?  Banging away at your keyboard obsessively day in day out, like you are possessed by some satanic force, getting involved in fictional lives which seem to be far more important than the real world around you?  What for?  How for?  These characters that have sucked you into their wretched web and kept you there for almost a year, compelling you to go on... to go on with their lives, whilst yours comes to a metaphorical halt.  Surely insanity is as insanity does, right?  You have abandoned living to bring them to life.

Will people like it? - You don't know.  Will it sell? - You don't know.  Do you have a publisher yet?  If so, will they like it? - You really don't know; do you?

But you still write every single day, relentlessly, as though you were digging for treasure, people laugh, some tut in marvel, others (and only a few) admire you.  But you don't care, you can see the story and it must be told!

Regardless of the consequences, which in itself leaves you quite nervous and a bit snappy!  You have a vision and it must be seen through the eyes of the world!  Are you unstable, have you finally (just as your great aunt had once predicted over a distant Christmas Dinner) gone mad?

Relax, you are not mad, you are a writer! Yep, you read it right, a writer, which I dare say by nature may portray signs of madness, but not actually quite doolally, (though my advice would be to keep an eye on yourself; it could flip) and by your nature your mind kinda looks like an overcrowded library.  You are probably well read, well versed in language and your imagination never asks for permission to soar through the iris of your eye and onto a page!  

You see, writers are the sort of people that only believe what their mind's eye sees and live through the confusion of their brains, allowing the noises, senses, indulgence and fantasies to dictate their whole existence.  No one is forcing us to work our fingers to the bone, typing away on our keyboards, no one is paying us (well, not yet) for all our tireless efforts, yet we do it; and not only for the love of it, but because we have a vision, a story has formed and it needs to be told.  We have magic, yes that's right magic, because with our magic we create worlds, we inspire readers, we nudge the emotions and awaken the compassion.  This, is our gift to the world.  

And (yes I did start the sentence with 'and', but I'm the author, I can do as I please) we see the world in shadows, because everywhere we look, each person we see, we are able to pull from them the shadows of their essence, the shadows of their likes and dislikes, the shadows of their life in technicolor! We have the gift of sight, sight into the soul of characters.  And every writer will tell you, people are author's material, all characters stem from someone we have encountered, albeit enlarged and magnified.  

Our words, our pages, our finished books -  magic, wonder and insight!  So no, we are not mad, we have not gone insane. And even if no one ever reads our books, even if we never become among the few that are famous; You are not mad, you are a writer, you are magic!