Writer's Madness

Sometimes I swagger through the house feeling tall and mighty and brave and brilliant.  Sometimes I hunch, scratching in the dirt, strangling the weeds, muttering defensively to myself.  Sometimes I hurl myself at the household chores with the tearful fervor of the newly saved, and sometimes I stare unblinkingly through the front window stuffing toast and jam and toast and jam and toast and jam into my face. 

And although none of these physical, mental, emotional states may take place in my office, at my desk, facing my computer, they are all about writing.

The book I'm working on now is all things to me from celebration to self loathing. 

Maybe it was like this with all my books. I don't know.  I can't remember writing any other books.  Like falling in love, and breaking up: it's always the first time.

Do dentists and data processors find themselves periodically dancing to the intestinal rumblings of an unknowable beast during their work day?  

Or, more to the point: Does a writer's emotional whiplash have anything at all to do with the work itself?  With how the writing is going?  With what is showing up on the page?  

I doubt it.

Here's what I suspect: Since we make up the story, and make up the people in it, and make up what these made up people do, and make up how they feel about what we've made up for them to do... We probably also make up how we feel about them and what we have them doing and why. 

Perhaps by spending all this time emeshed in so much making up we've simply driven ourselves mad.  Although maybe I'm just making that up.

xo

Amy