The Madness of Creation

by Greg Jackson

Copyright 2014 by Greg Jackson

I don't know where to begin. Hell, I never know where to begin. All I know is that I have these little voices in my head, coming from characters who are just dying to get paroled and let loose upon the world. All of their words bounce around as they talk to each other within the confines of my head. They don't connect, they have no common goal, they just...exist without any indication as to where they lie together.

I try to type them out, like a lonely secretary sitting at their desk as the characters orate. I get a sentence out but then it flips to someone else entirely. The next sentence refuses to link with the previous one and before I know it, I'm just babbling on about two different things coming from three different people that only I could visualize. I write like a madman on meth as I try to piece it all together.

Oh my God. Will people even understand this in the event that I can decipher whatever the hell is going on? What's the plot? What's the reasoning? I have no idea. All I know is that I was cursed with the inane ability to string a bunch or words together into a sentence that will magically transport someone into a world of my creation. If only I could stop and rationalize the pieces of my mental puzzle.

If only I could focus.

Unrelated words fueled by the endless caffeine I am feeding myself. That's all it is. I'm on a caffeine high and nothing is making sense but I have to get this done. I have to make this story in the hopes that someone will stumble upon my art and fawn all over it like I'm Stephen King. I could be the next James Patterson if I wasn't shaking so much. I am fueling myself into burning the candle at both ends, as if my illusory timeframe is contingent on writing my story as fast as I can. I need to rush but I need to calm the hell down and figure out where they fit in.

Christ, this is not my first book and still I'm reeling in the madness like it was? What the hell is wrong with me? Words are jumbling. Tenses are backwards and the conversations are taking a Tarantino-esque turn into a ten page diatribe about something vague. I don't even know what the something is!

Damn it! Write!

Will anyone even read it?

I don't know. I don't know what the hell I'm thinking. All I know is that I need to get these people out of my head. They're like holiday visitors that are eating all my food and staying too long. They're loud and boisterous and they keep me up all night and they will continue to do so until I make their voices heard.

Maybe that's it. Maybe, just maybe I'm the voice for these unseen people. I am the vessel that needs to tell their untold tales of vengeance, love or unrequited dreams. Without me, they have no past. They have no present and they certainly have no future. It's all up to me to let them live so their stories can be told.

Yes, that's it, I'm their only hope for survival and if I don't submit, they will begin to harbor murderous feelings and come after me. They...will...destroy...me!

And as I sit here, at the computer with its blinking cursor that mocks me incessantly, I start to scribble out the deciphered codes of words coming from my mental houseguests. And as the words flow like stubborn fish running upstream, I can remember their lives. I can see their futures and I can feel their present.

All  these characters...all their dilemmas and all their goals, there was something eerily familiar about all of them. They live in my head after arriving unannounced and they fester in there until they're ready to be heard. No, these characters aren't strangers at all. I can feel their dreams. I can relive their sorrows. I can even alter their pasts to something that isn't quite as painful as reality. Hell, I can make their lives hell.

And the words flowed as I settled into the comfort of my imaginary friends' lives. I knew them like the back of my hand and they knew me. Their conversations started to blend in with one another as they became more comfortable with each other. My characters were becoming friends, and mortal enemies and the plot was soon writing itself.

I just had to put some serious faith into my madness. I'm not Norman Bates. I don't need medication, I need inspiration. I need to know myself and remember the people that made me who I am. My whole life is a story full of fleshed-out beings.

Protagonists shall will bear some inflections of my numerous muses. The optimists who tackle life with smiles plastered to their faces as they grind through the murky waters of life. The ambition junkies who will stop at nothing to get to their goals. The unsung multi-taskers whose handling of raising children, going to school and working until all hours pale in comparison to their unrelenting positive attitude that sinks into the very source of my own ambition...like a spark that ignites my creativity by proxy. I am forever grateful for the unrelenting force of positive muses that exist to me merely by existing, which in turn gives me the hope and the drive to make something of my characters. And although I have since slipped into the shadows of their lives, their impressions on me will live on through the very keystrokes that they have silently inspired.

The antagonists, on the other hand are my favorite bunch of hooligans. They are the mischievous muses whose negativity has turned into character traits, the interior linings of amazing conflict. The naysayers who roll their eyes at my written offerings, the pessimists who are silently hoping for my failure. They are all powerful forces on their own and should be embraced as a rusty old sea vessel needing to be sunk. They need to be proven wrong. They are my drive to be better in spite of them and through them, the most heinous of villains shall be born!      

They're all in there, ready to leap out onto the page through my keystrokes. One by one I line them up for roll call and the characters come up to me, front and center. I settle in and realize that I'm writing, and have been writing stories that involve everyone in my life, in every tense, that has helped shape who I am.  And all those people, all those connections and all the characters that I have created eventually link to one common denominator:

They are my friends, they are my family and my life.

Everyone I write, every character and every line of dialogue has one thing in common...the one thing that when it makes sense, will make the words flow like crazy...

They are all pieces of me.