What would it be like to live with a writer?
This, from Shelagh Stephenson's entry in Art, Not Chance: nine artist's diaries, gives some indication:
"Have reached a strange place in the creative process, which may be akin to mental illness. Someone described to me once the manic phase of manic depression: thinking Silk Cut posters were charged with resonance and meaning, and were speaking specifically to you. Everything glitters with relevance, everything is connnected and somehow part of a vast and exciting plan, which only you understood. That's sort of where I am. A line in a newspaper, a gesture on television, a paragraph somwhere else, and something triggers, a whole set of connections tumbles into place. Everything is connected to [the play I'm about to write]. Yes, I think. This character has a profound problem with authenticity. Or whatever. Most of it is useless garbage, and forgotten almost before the thought has coalesced. But some of it strikes gold and I feel jittery and excited, tired and frightened, all at the same time. Obviously, I'm fantastic fun to live with during this phase; Eoin wakes me up in the morning and taps me on the forehead with the words: 'Stop thinking'. He says he can hear the cogs grinding in my head."
This, from Shelagh Stephenson's entry in Art, Not Chance: nine artist's diaries, gives some indication:
"Have reached a strange place in the creative process, which may be akin to mental illness. Someone described to me once the manic phase of manic depression: thinking Silk Cut posters were charged with resonance and meaning, and were speaking specifically to you. Everything glitters with relevance, everything is connnected and somehow part of a vast and exciting plan, which only you understood. That's sort of where I am. A line in a newspaper, a gesture on television, a paragraph somwhere else, and something triggers, a whole set of connections tumbles into place. Everything is connected to [the play I'm about to write]. Yes, I think. This character has a profound problem with authenticity. Or whatever. Most of it is useless garbage, and forgotten almost before the thought has coalesced. But some of it strikes gold and I feel jittery and excited, tired and frightened, all at the same time. Obviously, I'm fantastic fun to live with during this phase; Eoin wakes me up in the morning and taps me on the forehead with the words: 'Stop thinking'. He says he can hear the cogs grinding in my head."
