My Descent into Madness

This came to mind the other day as I felt myself going off the rails while I attempted to create another entry for the Snacktime Challenge. But it suddenly occurred to me that instead of being afraid of the madness, I could embrace it and even perhaps turn it into another entry into RM’s March Madness Challenge.

I know that’s not how normal people would look at this but let’s be honest, I’m an author and I’m not normal! Not to mention I had just finished battling a very long fit of Writers Fever. If you are unfamiliar with the term, it’s what my husband calls an extended period of obsessively writing. If you’re interested, click on the link and you can see a story I wrote about it, not too long ago.

But for now, let’s get back to what I was saying previously. My most recent bout of Writers Fever was when I wrote An Ode to Dr. Pepper.

I felt inspired by the challenge and rose to the occasion with the inspiration of my beloved Dr. Pepper. Not being very poetic by nature, I decided I’d start by writing a few sets of couplets and then arrange them so that they made sense of some sort. Or as much sense as my brand of poetry can make.

At this point, I feel the need to explain that I had a fancy coffee from the well-known establishment that morning. So, as a non-coffee drinker, I was buzzing!

Fuelled by a coffee and Dr. Pepper for inspiration, I wrote thirty-nine rhyming couplets. Produced by sipping my pop, listening to the sound, feeling it on my tongue, smelling it, analyzing the colour in the light and doing a little research.

The problem was that I had thirty-nine couplets, and I had no way of organizing them over three separate pages. I was overwhelmed and well overstimulated after my beverages.

This is when the writers fever found me and when the madness took hold. I didn’t know it yet, but I was about to spend three hours muttering to myself and mapping my poem out like a puzzle on the dining room table. Spoiler alert: It looked as crazy as it sounds and I had the foresight to take pictures of my chaos, for your hopeful enjoyment.

It all started to spiral when I decided to print out the pages so that I could number the couplets and try to arrange them that way.

I won’t tell you how long it took me to realize the paper I was using was pink, but forty-five minutes is a long time. The only reason I clued in was because my husband commented when he saw me reading from it.

“Huh, I didn’t know we had pink paper.”

“Oh… uh… yeah.” I believe I said and tried not to make eye contact with him, in shame of how bad the tunnel vision of writers fever had become.

Eventually, I gave up on drawing on the page. I wish I’d kept it or taken a picture because it looked ridiculous. But I was so angry I ripped it up and tossed it in our recycling bin outside.

I may be crazy but I am not dumpster diving in front of my own house in my pyjamas. No, thank you!

This is when my creative journey took an interesting turn. One that has me still questioning my mental suitability for writing poetry.

You’ll see what I mean in a minute!

So at this point, I think most people would have taken a walk or a break or something, but I’m a stubborn little shit. So I will, very honestly, tell you that did not happen and instead, I took another road.

I reprinted it on my ugly pink paper.

I don’t know why there is pink paper in my printer, but you know what? It serves the purpose, so whatever! Although I do rather detest the colour pink!

Anyway, this was when I had the bright idea of combining my two favourite hobbies, doing puzzles and writing. I cut the couplets up and placed them in a pile on my dining room table.

Now, if you don’t know where I’m going with this, then I envy you because as I still see it, there was no other way! And still see no other way of doing it!

I pulled slips out of the pile to assemble them into stanzas and sort between them.

It was around this time that I realized I was teetering on the edge of not-so-sane.

I won’t say crazy yet, and you’ll see why later.

This was when I decided it would be a good idea to document my creative journey to finish this poem. If anything, I’d get another entry to RM’s March Madness challenge out of it.

And so it seems, I was right!

I sorted through the pieces, teasing out various “matching phrases” to create stanzas.

This was the opportune moment when my husband walked into the kitchen to check on me.

He’d found me muttering to myself, yelling at the pick papers before me and consulting with the unseen entities around me.

Just to confirm, this was not a good look.

The poor man just stood there in shock for who knows how long, his expression blank in shock and quite possibly a little fear.

Honestly, he won’t even admit he witnessed anything since the incident. And I honestly can’t confirm how much he saw because I was literally in another world.

As I became aware of his presence, I watched as he slowly backed out of the room, careful not to turn his back on me. Like a hiker that just happened upon a bear, avoiding eye contact and with great caution until he was out of sight.

Now I’ll use the C word because even a derailed looney like me has to admit when they looked like a crazy person. I can’t blame him for his reaction, but I won’t say I regret my choices as to how I got myself there. Because I am extremely proud of the poem I produced and I’m not letting anyone take that from me.

All great work has a cost and if my cost was that I lost my mind for a hot minute (or several hours), then I will gladly pay for it. I know that sounds big-headed, but I want to try being proud of my work for once and I will start that here and now.

I continued working on my poem until I had formed it into two separate poems.

After writing a few phrases by hand and moving the slips of paper around some more, I finally felt satisfied. Making it one complete piece with several stanzas.

But as I finished this and was ready to move on to typing it all up, a question lingered in the back of my mind.

Who does this????

So I will seriously ask you now if anyone else in the world does poetry like this? Or even something similar?

Or has this entire article been nothing but complete madness??

Anyway, I’ve got a rather large migraine after all that work and typing this article right after that fiasco. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m long overdue for a well-earned nap!

As always, thank you so much for reading.

I hope you enjoyed this ride along into my spiral of madness, please be sure to tip your tour guide and leave a five star review!

- Donna Fox (HKB)