The Madness of Authors by Nicky Fitzmaurice – Guest blog
The Madness of Authors
“There is no great genius without a mixture of madness”. Aristotle.
I can say with confidence that I have known Authors all my life. Driven and focussed as they are, their world is both tiny and massively expansive. Their incarcerated need to write felt as badly as any addiction. Failure to open the doors of their creativity and release the beast within, a torment constructed from the very pits of hell that could perhaps only be translated from the very Codex Seriphinianus itself.
A breed apart, Authors interact with the outside world with only half an eye; the other half is firmly fixed in observation and the gathering of data for a potential “work in progress”. Throw away sentences; interesting comments and how people respond to a given a situation are all essential moments in time that must be noted.
Authors never rest in their quest for more snippets to be added to their store of writers goodies. For instance, the lady sitting over? We can see that she is dressed in a smart cream designer outfit offset by her moulded Spanx figure. Her shoes worn to match are rich in leather, lacking in any scuff or scrape. Heavy gold jewellery placed just so, to match her perfected bob of hair. Not one iota of her presentation is out of place. Can you see her now? The writer silently smirks as they begin to place her not just in the room but in their work. Little details that make up this woman’s demeanour have been noted, but the writer has seen more. Her calm controlled exterior is fractured in their eyes as they’ve seen the agitation in her hands. Mild but true, she keeps turning the stem of her water glass, round and around. It matters not to this author, their observation of her agitation is a mere moment of passing thought; noted and logged for later. But what is this? Our ‘bit player’ has just shot up the ranks of interest. She’s made a fundamental error that has altered her bastion of control to one of humorous clown. The stemmed glass she’s been twirling is rimmed with her luscious red lipstick. In her determined efforts to hide her discomfort she has sipped from her glass without care. There for all to see is her trademark of agitation printed across the bridge of her nose. A bright red slice of lipstick has been stamped across her face for all to see. For most around her, they will either not notice, or passingly dismiss, but in the world of the author that red line has ripped through the room of ambling bodies and become the sole focus of their distraction. Will this woman notice? Will someone tell her? Time goes by and each and every conversation is firmly punctuated with the overwhelming desire to see how this cutting red scenario will play out. Disappointingly she departs without incident, but in the mind of the Writer the drama continues to unfold, they visualise the look of horror as her reflection in the mirror reveals the truth. The Writer envisages her inner struggle to convince herself that the unwanted stain on her nose has been there only a short time and that no one will have noticed.
The Madness of an Author means that although back in the real world this lady is long forgotten; for our Author this event will continually haunt them like a nagging pain. Like a thought that there is a task out there, forgotten and incomplete. The release from the madness will only come when, in the form of the written word, this lady’s moment is brought to life once more for all to see.
Nicky Fitzmaurice of Satinpaperbacks.com fell in love with books from a very early age. I became enamoured with the idea that different worlds and adventures could all be encapsulated within their pages, and thus my love soon became my passion. Having been in book clubs all my life, it soon became apparent that there was a need to help the Clubs save time, energy and money and so satinpaperbacks.com was born. The website aims to inspire your choice of books to read, to hire them to you whilst couriering them to and from your club; all at half the price of RRP paperback book. And where there are great readers, there are great writers: Satinpaperbacks offers editing, formatting and uploading to an ePublishing House of your choice.
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