Last week, I heard the most provocative remark from an older woman addressing the topic of art and literature. She told me genius turned her on.

Just a Second: By Nate Hansen 

Last week, I heard the most provocative remark from an older woman addressing the topic of art and literature. She told me genius turned her on.

But what surprised me the most was the addendum to her remark. She said the quality she admired most in regard to genius was the madness buried in the depths of the originator’s minds.

Madness, I thought. Madness truly is the key ingredient, the spice of life. And through literary madmen, I express these thoughts on matters we should all consider. After all, it was Albert Camus who said, “It is immoral not to tell.”

Jack Kerouack wrote, quoted here as he wrote it, “Be in love with yr life. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind. Blow as deep as you want to blow. Write what you want bottomless from the bottom of the mind. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition. Write in recollection and amazement of yourself.”

I’m no Kerouack, nor aspire to be, but I feel sometimes the best rule is not having any, and sometimes the best plan is none. Be surprised with all the spontaneity you can muster and don’t get caught up in the technicalities of routine.

In those same respects, Dylan Thoms advised, “There is always one right word; use it, despite its foul or merely ludicrous associations.”

Yes and no. I feel “profanity” is a bad name for good words that are sometimes necessary, just as some things are better left unsaid.

The only definite things in life I know of are love and death, yet sometimes people need their existence to be more concrete than that. They search for that one word to live by.

If I had a single word to live by I’d choose “original.”

Then there’s D. H. Lawrence who wrote, “Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you’ve got to say, and say it hot.”

In other words, write loud and speak a different font, no matter what it pertains to in life. The First Amendment is first for a reason.

Activist and author Abbie Hoffman once said, “If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more war.” These words prove sometimes the most absurd idea can be a solution for an even worse situation, so never pass anything off as insignificant.

Charles Bukowski advised Ann Bauman in a letter, quoted here as he wrote it, “Study yr keeds. Kids. There are a lot of poems there. But don’t write about yr kids. Write about the human, what’s left of him, where he’s going, what he dropped on the floor.”

So true. Childhood is the chrysalis of humanity people tend to poke, prod, or neglect. Little do they know each interaction affects its future path of flight.

Use the same analogy substituting “childhood” with “Earth” and it works just as well, if not better.

Ernest Hemingway wrote in a letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Forget your personal tragedy. We are all [expletive] from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously.”

To the lovers of writers, never assume written words are same as the soul. To the writers who love, never accept anyone who can’t accept the difference.

Anton Chekov said, “If, in the first chapter, you say there is a gun hanging on the wall, you should make quite sure that it is going to be used further on in the story.”

As for me, I say keep them guessing, just never lose skill as a marksman.

When Henry Miller was asked who he thought his audience was, he said, “I write for the angels. I write for the madmen.”

Sedona has both. I hope I reached them angelically, crazily.

And lastly, Tennessee Williams said his terror was the white page in the typewriter. Mine is saying good-bye.

Good-bye.

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