Tuesday's Inspiration - The Writer's Mind

This will be the last post listing some of the things that make a writer's mind. From John Gardner, "an inexplicable and incurable addiction to stories. written or oral, bad or good."

I've always been fascinated with stories and I'm sure the rest of you are also. The stories that strike me hard are ones I read and re-read. Not sure why. Then there are the stories that make me mad. Maybe the idea is good but the execution isn't. Now I read books for contests, sometimes whole books and sometimes just parts. When the story is good, I may feel a touch of envy but I continue reading and enjoying. Then there are those bad stories. I struggle to read them. I find myself trying to make them better, at least in my head.

Another quote from On Becoming A Novelist. "Writers would clearly be madmen if they weren't so psychologically complicated to settle on any given madness." Amusing yet probably true. People give odd looks when a group of writers is talking about how the people in their stories take charge, talk to them and seem to be as real to the author as the people in their lives. Face it, I once read "There is a thin line between genius and madness." I firmly believe writers walk this edge every time they write a story.

So don't be upset when people look at you strangely when they think you are talking to yourself. You're not, you're conversing with the characters you write.