A Tribute to Dean Moriarty (@wales) - One of Steems Greatest Creatives

I would say that as a writer you have to take on many faces or be confined to one genre, but even in that one genre there are the different faces of the characters to play with.

Take the one that kisses the sky electric for instance, where madness is a splurge of genius pushing on to the next level: there are many levels, but the genius level is hardest to maintain and must be kept at a constant temperature or else. You must understand this before you begin.

And, a tidal approach may win you many favours in the waters that you swim kissing to the sky, but nothing comes close so much as a question on rye and a blarnious approach to reality looking over your shoulder and wishing you well and staring at you in the mirror.

And the esoteric monkey in the tree is going clapaclapaclap; but then it’s always doing that, isn’t it, it never stops.

And if you see this soldier, shaped like a wishing well, and hanging out of the window of your deepest desires and thinking honeybees and chillicorns, then you may be forgiven for all your sins, but not until then.

People who kiss the sky this way are usually considered half insane, and generally feared them for their honesty and can sometimes be quoted as saying: we shall swing here then if we do nto swing there, and maybe we will blow trumpets in the wind, and maybe we won’t, but whatever, we will not be the headless chicken or the spineless toad, and certainly not lilly livered.

Writers in this style may find themselves waking up in the morning with their head buzzing with all the things of their dreams calling to be written down before they are lost in the distractions of the new day.

On the other hand there are those writers who procrastinate from all their many excuses and are usually back seat drivers who say that one day they will begin that great story as soon as they think of it; perhaps when the writer’s block has finally gone away.

And then there are those that sit down every day with their many characters and churn out with hard work their story that grows and grows until it is finished; whereupon will come the editing and the reediting until it is finely polished and can be sent out for publishing.

And those writer’s aids: the haze filled nights of booze and cigarettes where the waste basket overflows with the rejects, where the music plays in the background hardly heard in the passion of the moment’s inspiration. And oh, those notebooks filled with passing thoughts…

And then there are those that have a voice, perhaps the voice of the people/society in general, their conscience, and that when read it is said: I recognise the truth in this, what is being said I believe. These writers are often seen as revolutionaries, or visionaries, who burn at all the injustices, and who must say what has to be said.

For me it is the coffee drip that keeps me going, that fuels my inspiration. It is that quiet corner of some café where I can be left alone to write what comes; where the many faces of my creation astound me with their depth and experience to bring the next word, and then the next…