This Many Steps To Crazy...

spurred by shovelheat

Published on January 20, 2006 By crimson In Blogging

Shovelheat wrote an amazing kicker of a story hereLink
and it definitely got me thinking about a lot of things.

Firstly, just how far off is your average person from crazy? I'm not kidding when I say that I definitely question this on a regular basis at work. People fly off the handle in a heartbeat, and due to anger and frustration, people have screamed the most horrid and surprising things at me. What gets me, is that typically half of these calls start off being normal. The person sounds like your average, everyday sane being.... and by the end of the conversation I shake my head at what has just passed. Some people have litterally yelled at me at the top of their lungs, and have obviously slammed the phone down on me with such enormous force that I know they've broken yet another phone. I absolutely do not get people who just lose it like that. Where and who do they go home to after they're done with me?

Secondly, as a writer, I've had similar issues addressed. Certain blame and shame has resulted over the presentation of a new story. I hate showing my parents my stuff. My mother once hit me with a 'so this is what you write about?' and I was cringing. The mother in the story was not her, but how does any parent take their child's main character's parent in a story being painted as overbearing, scary, and mentally unsound? It's never a good scene, no matter what truth lies beneath.

As a writer, I give myself every opportunity to go wild. Murders often are drawn out step by step, and the most awful things happen to my child characters. How far am I from crazy by writing this stuff? How much sicker can I get?

I often relate dreams and writing to each other. Often, after completing a story or novel, I look back on it, at it's as if it wrote itself. Sometimes it's like I'm one of those Occultist/Mediums that do that automatic writing thing. You know, where the person sits in a chair with a pencil loose in hand who then opens their mind and the writing begins by some strange force/prescence? Really. I don't know how some of my stories get written.

I've heard it related to a massive brain dump. The subconscious just lets loose with the little daily things you think you weren't paying attention to. That's what those dreams of flailing at an intruder with a baseball bat is really all about. That smushy sound like a rotten honeydew melon falling on a tiled floor was just a brain dropping. Like horseshit after a parade. Writing is definitely a bit like dreaming. You can see things so clearly as you write, sometimes, when it gets really good, it's like you're right there.

Right on. That's exactly what I love about it all.

Comments

KellyW0498

on Jan 20, 2006

I think what keeps us sane is that we can write whatever we want. Work it out with words. You can do, be and go anywhere with words and get it all out of your system. This was good and it sent me over to Shovels blog, which always takes me on an exciting read!

I'm glad you two are at JU!

JillUser

on Jan 21, 2006

Well, you know what they say, if you think you're crazy, you aren't. I think a lot of people aren't too many steps from crazy. There are so many flavors of crazy too. I don't think that many people are on the verge of becoming murderous. I just think a lot of people walk around wound way too tight and any little thing might set them off.

MasonM

on Jan 21, 2006

Personally, I think we are all crazy is some way or another. A truly textbook "normal" person would be quite dull.

The Earth is the galactic insane asylum. The UFOs aren't visitors, they're the keepers.

JillUser

on Jan 21, 2006

The Earth is the galactic insane asylum. The UFOs aren't visitors, they're the keepers.

Sounds like you know quite a bit on the subject MasonM

MasonM

on Jan 21, 2006

Yer right Jill. I've given this matter a lot of thought over a lot of beers and am convinced that the Earth is indeed the asylum of the galaxy. What else could possibly explain things on our little spinning ball of crap?

dynamaso

on Jan 30, 2006

I am convinced I'm crazy. So is my wife. But at least we have fun, which is more than I can say for a lot of the so-called sane folk out there...

In the words of Pink Floyd, 'Shine on you crazy diamond...'

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