Madness and Writing

Even though I believe the genesis of this particular post stems from the current stresses of my live (mostly work and my lack of time for anything creative, including this blog), the subject of madness and writing has been a topic that has flown in and out of mind for some time now, hell, probably since I first put pen to paper all those years ago.

As I started moving through the material I had assigned this semester for my first literature-focused class, I realized something: I like "crazy" authors and "crazy" stories. Without realizing it, I had assigned works by Poe, Woolf, Gilman, and Kafka, and that was just the first part of the semester. We have since moved on to the Greek gods. Many students, I have discovered, find the ancient Greeks' myths nothing short of pure insanity. How can anyone ever believe that a god could take the form of an animal, impregnate a human woman, and thus produce a half-god offspring? That is, of course, until I draw comparisons to Christian theology (and I am VERY careful not to use "mythology" when referring to Christianity; many students would probably not appreciate their religious beliefs being lumped into the same category as those crazy Greek gods) and the Virgin Mary.

The next major works my students will read include Oedipus Rex and Hamlet. Needless to say, those works could also fall under the umbrella of "crazy." I fear my students may think I'm nuts and not just because I enjoy reading and writing as much as I do.

However, my sanity aside, all of this got me to thinking more and more about how intricately linked madness and writing can be. Stephen King writes (in his stellar writing book On Writing) that there are about four levels of writing (if I've gotten this wrong, forgive me, for all of my books are currently packed away, so my ability to double-check has been lessened considerably), structured as a pyramid. The bottom layer, which is the largest, is comprised of people who are not competent writers. The second layer consists of competent writers. The third layer is comprised of good writers. And the top layer is populated with genius level writers.

Most people occupy the bottom layer, which is not necessarily a bad thing (unless you're an English teacher and your job is to educate students on how best to write). Fewer people occupy the middle and second layers, but this is still quite a large portion of the population. The top layer has the lowest number of members, obviously. So few true geniuses appear in our lifetimes that in order to occupy this layer it's almost a necessity to be a bit "off."

Stephen King places himself on the third level, the good writers, which is defended by the fact that he is one of the most popular writers of our time. Since I have yet to be published and have my mettle tested out there in the real world of publishing, I'd have to say I'm a competent writer, hopefully moving up the pyramid.

Occupying the top layer is not a place King wants to find himself, and neither do I. His reasoning is that most of the people who are considered genius level writers usually have severe emotional and mental problems and quite often find themselves living a lonely life. It's actually kind of depressing when you think about it. Just think of my favorite writer, Virginia Woolf, who suffered from severe depression, bouts of insanity, and tried to committ suicide a couple of times before she was finally successful.

While I greatly admire Woolf's writing, her life is not one I aspire to. Yes, I want to be published. Yes, I would love to have my books read by millions and be a well-respected writer, but I have to face the fact that such dreams may not be a possibility for me. Of course, this does not mean I'll stop writing. On the contrary, I will always write. I have to. Ever since the first writing project I can remember when I was asked to create a book and I blatantly stole a scene from Disney's The Little Mermaid, I have had this insatiable desire to write nearly everything that comes to mind. This can explain my sometimes insanely long blog posts. This one is seriously threatening to become one of the long ones

Random note: For some reason, reading anything on the Internet that takes more than a couple of minutes constitutes a long post. Welcome to the twenty-first century.

Writing is an outlet for me, and when deprived, I find that I'm irritable, angry, and even moodier than usual. Even if my books never get published, I will continue to write down the stories that come to my head. Not all of them, since some of my ideas are just awful, just the ones that stick, the ideas that linger on in my head for long periods of time.

Recently, I've faced some of my first of many future setbacks, I'm sure, to my professional writing career. They came in the form of rejection letters. The first was a rejection letter from a potential agent. No surprise there. The second came from an academic journal, which said my article "lacked the clarity of argument necessary for academic articles." Apparently, my article was not clear enough in its argument, or something like that. This one did hurt a bit because I had worked pretty hard on the revisions they had asked of me, none of which included: "lacked the clarity of argument necessary for academic articles."

Oh well.

The third rejection letter was for another article I'd submitted, but this one wasn't a surprise either. After submitting the article, I'd reread it (something I should have done before submitting it; I know, stupid mistake) and thought it didn't sound at all like an academic article, but the paper of a first semester grad student, which was exactly when I'd written it.

I've received rejection letters before, but not in such quick succession. The timing is what I think hurt the most. So, I've been wandering around, doing my duties as instructor and tutor just like I always have been, albeit in a more depressed state, wondering if I'll ever be published by anyone other than my former university's literary journal. Not a great state to find myself. Indeed, the madness of writers like Poe and Woolf is starting to become all too clear although not because my writing is fantastic but because I'm now starting to feel the first stings of rejection. I have a feeling wine will be near and dear to me in the coming months and years. Just kidding, of course...or am I?

Anyway, instead of whining about all of this (although I am doing quite a bit of whining in this blog post), I'm going to push on, no matter what may happen. I may find myself an aged teacher, cynical, surly, irritable, and bemoaning my students' lack of writing abilities, but at least I'll have accomplished one thing: I at least taught someone how to express themselves in writing. And that won't be too bad an accomplishment.