"Suppose that to even think about such experiences you had to endure all
the actual physical or emotional pain of the original incident? The
crushing blow of the hammer? The heartache and tears of your loss? And
suppose further, that you were trying to write a play, and in order to
bring genuine emotion to it you forced yourself to endure these pains
and emotional stresses, minute after minute--"
"God!" I said. "But you said he'd recover?"
"In a few weeks, yes. Gradually we will reduce sedation until he can
control his memories again, but never ask him to write another dramatic
work. Another attack like this one could drive him irretrievably
insane."
It wasn't too hard to understand. After all, what is creative writing
but setting down little bits of yourself? And the demands of literature
are for human problems, conflicts, struggles.
Young as he was, Hillary was no different from the rest of us. Sure, he
was full of reading and second hand bits of business, but he dug deeply
into his own private pot of pain for his genuine dramatic effects. And
where others dig with a long-handled ladle, Hillary dipped with his bare
soul--and he got scalded.
Getting him well and keeping him that way was a matter of putting the
lid back on the pot, so to speak. Nobody ever invited him to write
another word. I saw to that. He's still with me, because after he went
bankrupt on the sanitarium deal he had nowhere to turn. After taxes and
the rooking the real estate boys gave him, his royalties were tied up
for years to come.
He did get better, though. And he even works a little. Turns out scripts
for mild little comic books, the Honey-Bunney type that are approved by
parent-teacher censors. They don't sell very well. No conflict. No guts.