The Novelist's Dilemma
Now that I've become a bona fide mystery novelist, I've run into an interesting dilemma.
And no, it has nothing to do with killing off my characters, as I've already come up with various methods of getting that done (deadly vipers, bombs, exotic poisons, etc.)
No, my dilemma is this:
Everyone knows that even a halfway competent writer is required to have some sort of horrible psychological and/or medical problem.
* to wit:
1. Johnathan Swift: nicknamed the "mad parson", was obsessed with counting and bodily functions, in his old age his manservant showed him off to the public for a small fee
2. Hans Christian Andersen: hypochondriac, constantly carried a coil of rope for fear of being caught in a hotel fire
3. James Joyce: an underwear fetishist who kept a small set of "doll's knickers" in his pocket and pulled them out at parties
4. Marcel Proust: wrote most of his novels while lying in bed in a room lined with cork, had a sexual fixation with butchers, pierced live rats with hat pins
5. Samuel Johnson: apparently suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder and hypochondria, was unable to tell time by reading a clock
I have come to the conclusion that, in order to be published, I must acquire some sort of eccentric malady. Asthma doesn't quite seem to fit the bill, so perhaps I should cultivate a fear of staplers or squeegees?
I shall ponder the question.... because I am sick of looking at my horrible novel.
* information retrieved from The Mammoth Book of Oddballs and Eccentrics by Karl Shaw
And no, it has nothing to do with killing off my characters, as I've already come up with various methods of getting that done (deadly vipers, bombs, exotic poisons, etc.)
No, my dilemma is this:
Everyone knows that even a halfway competent writer is required to have some sort of horrible psychological and/or medical problem.
* to wit:
1. Johnathan Swift: nicknamed the "mad parson", was obsessed with counting and bodily functions, in his old age his manservant showed him off to the public for a small fee
2. Hans Christian Andersen: hypochondriac, constantly carried a coil of rope for fear of being caught in a hotel fire
3. James Joyce: an underwear fetishist who kept a small set of "doll's knickers" in his pocket and pulled them out at parties
4. Marcel Proust: wrote most of his novels while lying in bed in a room lined with cork, had a sexual fixation with butchers, pierced live rats with hat pins
5. Samuel Johnson: apparently suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder and hypochondria, was unable to tell time by reading a clock
I have come to the conclusion that, in order to be published, I must acquire some sort of eccentric malady. Asthma doesn't quite seem to fit the bill, so perhaps I should cultivate a fear of staplers or squeegees?
I shall ponder the question.... because I am sick of looking at my horrible novel.
* information retrieved from The Mammoth Book of Oddballs and Eccentrics by Karl Shaw
Labels: authors, eccentrics, National Novel Writing Month, trivia
