The Fantastic, The Strange and The Ridiculous, a guest blog by Dorothy Adamek

You’re crazy.

Allow me to tell you, if you don’t already know.

Writers are a confirmed bunch of crazy people. It’s true. I’ve been told, so it must be.

I don’t mean the first dictionary definition.

1. deranged of mind.I prefer the next one down.

2. fantastic, strange and ridiculous.

Known to dive into crazy situations, we whisper crazy thoughts and hunt down crazy stuff. We sniff out the crazy in others and revel in their stories, mentally storing details to savor later in our scribbles.

It’s all part of the job description and none of us would be game to deny it.

We hear a delicious phrase and tuck it away for our good pleasure. Ponder the title of a book from a list of thoroughbreds about to race. Lose ourselves smelling fruit as we contemplate what best describes late autumn.

We visit places far from home to taste the wind. Just to get the crazy details right. Revisit childhood to unearth emotions only God can strengthen us to navigate again. And let the moon rise, hours after our beloveds have fallen asleep, to continue writing until dawn nudges the sky.

While others go about their normal day, we wander down a pathway no one else can see. We dawdle there and find something crazy enough to share with the dear one we call reader.

Last January, like every other summer, my kids swam in the waters of Australia’s Phillip Island. I stayed ashore, shivering in the absent summer. I would not play in frozen water… until one crazy thought gripped me and wouldn’t let go.

I wonder what it feels like to step in fully clothed? The way a character might in a moment of despair.

So I waded into the shallows and let the sea foam pull at my skirt with icy tugs. I let the waves assault my goose flesh until the black fabric stuck to my knees. And to my children’s horror, I ventured deeper and watched my clothes billow under me to the sway of the sea.

I just wanted to know. How would it feel to step out with sodden clothes clinging to my skin? How long would those tiny streams of water drip down my legs, and how much sand would my hem collect before I reached home?

Hours later I looked again, at the dusty salt marks in the creases of my skirt.

It was crazy and it was fun. And it was part of whom I’ve now become. A gatherer of details and experiences. A crazy writer.

Are you a crazy writer? Game enough to share a time when some craziness beckoned in your writing pursuits?

And if you’re too shy to admit a moment of craziness, remember crazy also means this.

3. very good or excellent.

Ask any teenager. They’re crazy too!

Dorothy Adamek is an Australian writer of Historical Romance. She lives at Crabapple House with her Beloved and their three children, twenty fruit trees and Gilbert the cat. Come say G’day at her blog, Ink Dots.  www.dorothyadamek.blogspot.com.au/