"I’m not a writer." you say? That is a lie. We know the truth. Everyone does. You are a writer, passionate and gifted. Nobody is perfect and knowing all the rules doesn't make you a writer. Writing does. Here's to a finished story and to many more to come, ahem, Brae... ;)
People have this weird thing about what makes you an artist or an author. If you walk most days, you consider yourself a walker, if you read you’re a reader, likewise if you do art or ‘put pen to paper’, you’re an artist or a writer. The degree of skill has nothing to do with it, although the fact that there are quite a few of us lurking on this side of the screen, appears to indicate a degree of talent. So forget ‘the rules’ and just let the muse come through you. Enjoy yourself dear fellow. We’ll be quietly hanging around eager to see the results. Hugs and best wishes. 🤗🤗😘
What a brilliant postscript to completely complete your first fiction. So honest and raw, even our good friend Cărtărescu seems to grapple with some of the territory you feel unsure of. Clearly this is just human or even more so, a deeply philosophical response to the creation of art.
Agree with Alexander, you are a writer without a doubt, and a gifted one. Whether you share with those you know personally or not makes no difference to US as readers. I guess it depends why you want to share. (I would, but also, secrets can be nice.)
One could imagine this story as a novella in a collection of several. Maybe it's just my current mirror as I'm considering shortening two drafts I'm working on into novella form and adding a third for a complete trilogy of seemingly disparate subjects. Hmm. Your vision and experimentation (as well as the use of first person, in your way) have been inspirational for me. Thanks for giving us even more of the author behind the story here. :)
That's so kind to say, Kate. I'm feel honoured if anything I have written has inspired you.
I think part of the reason why Solenoid gripped me so much was the apparent struggle and reflection that Cărtărescu seemed to be describing.
I love the idea of several novellas being folded into a collection. As Alexander poked at, Brae will likely be next. Precipice remains too sprawling for now, so for that I will keep at the fragments and dip in and out of the storyline.
[Incoming novel, maybe part of a series? Not sure. Novellas in the works in the background. Enjoying the freedom of them. Somehow they feel hors-catégorie.]
Each word finds a match and ignites the next word to support a conflagration that consumes the reader to enhance and stir the embers that raise the imagination to the sky. The rest is ashes stirred with water, tears of what could have been, but wasn’t. The next story develops like the Phoenix to entice your fingers on keyboard and power strokes to slay another creature that lurks in your forest. I await to walk that cleared path.
Nathan, my first response is to question if this is a story within a story. Who is talking here? You? A character? Is this you or a character: "Like always, I had no idea what I was doing. I just wrote, typing out sentences that sounded believable but with zero plan. All I knew was that I wanted to write about a myth." No matter. The person speaking is a discovery writer, not a plotter. A discovery writer discovers what they are writing by writing. A plotter figures it all out before they write. I enjoyed the piece.
I can't help but have a wry smile at this, Harley. You are the first to wonder, and I was deliberate in a few passages to try to nudge the voice that way. I like some of the ambiguity, but for the large part I was writing this from within myself ;)
A discovery writer is *such* a better term than "pantser". I hate the latter.
Thank you for being here. I always love reading your thoughts.
So glad you did this. Such a brilliantly ephemeral piece, it lends itself very much to self-analysis. A few things caught my attention:
"Because I’ve had no training.
I just know what I like." - I like to compare these feelings to musicians. The vast majority of popular musicians have had absolutely no training. They are just emulating what they've heard. For some reason (myself included, even thought I also have no 'training') we tend to ascribe more academic influence to being able to write well. Perhaps this is because the publishing world tends to be dominated by academics, unlike the recording industry. All of that to say, I think it's important for you and I to emphasize our lack of training as you did here, so that others like us can take confidence.
"First person is, to me, the most beautiful and compelling form of literature. It is a constrained and personal account. It is the closest we come to our own lives, ones that suffer their own unreliable narrators, existing and shaping our stories each day, the stories of catastrophic love and despair. It fascinates me." - It's interesting because I almost read this as if you, Slake, were the protagonist... of course, there was no evidence to suggest such, and I knew it was not 'you'. But it's how our minds are wired.
Once again I can compare to music. When we hear someone sing about how they're in love with someone, why is it that we always assume that actually the "I" is personal, that it has to do with the person singing it? Can they not also inhabit a character?
Part of my pseudonym is to try and escape this relation. I want people when they read my first person to immediately know it's not 'me'. It's not always successful.
"Meaning, most likely, that the initial chapter will need to be tweaked." - Oh???
The never-ending temptation.
Because I feel the same about first person. It's easiest to write in, and people tend to like reading it the best. It's easier to suspend your disbelief as a reader.
Thanks so much Clancy. Yours retros really have inspired me here, so thanks.
You know, I hadn't thought about the music industry but that's a very astute observation.
RE: first person. Yeah, I think this is partly why I love it. There are, presumably, glimpses into the mind of the author, regardless of how loose those may be, but equally they can be entirely divorced and occupying the character. And again, I've never considered this in the context of music. I've always thought "well this love song is clearly born from the singer's experiences". But you're totally right.
I love your take on why you're writing under a pseudonym.
Yeah, the temptation to edit. I don't know, maybe it's not necessary.
I'd be curious to know what the population preference on first vs third is. I've always figured people much prefer third.
I too must agree with Alex above; you say you are not a writer and yet, you write, you have
written, therefore in the truest sense of the verb: to write, you are a writer. And if not then your witchery of words, of divine prose fooled every one of us! Fin. I cannot say more other than that I believed… from the very start that this was you. I
« I strove to build a style that was as rich and poetic and languorous as I could manage. One that was filled with words that maybe I didn’t even know were real.»
You succeeded, in all of those too, in brilliant ephemeral bites.
I so appreciate this. I'm not going to lie, I was a little nervous going in, purely because sometimes a thing picked apart can be a thing murdered. I remember having to take a poetry class and found it excruciating, especially when it came to picking apart and logic-ing poems I loved. I just keep thinking, "Stop! You're killing it!". Anyway, that was my fear, here. But this was beautiful and only served to deepen my love of the story, and my fascination with the fact that it really did seem to have a life of its very own. You were most successful in securing a rich, poetic and languorous style. Languorous being the perfect word. So languorous, in fact (I'm really enjoying using the word languorous, now) that it bordered on the psychedelic. I think one part of why I enjoyed the story so much was actually due to your pre and post ambles, which gave the impression of a writer semi-tortured by a wily muse who was insisting all sorts of unreasonable demands...
Anyway, brilliant work. I feel you deserve a 'holiday', or a 'rest' (in the Victorian sense of 'actually checking myself into a psych ward') now.
And, to echo everyone else, "I'm not a writer", shut up Nathan.
Thanks for the lovely comment, Chloe. You know, it didn't occur to me that I might be treading down a path of butchering things when I started writing this. I'm relieved to hear that wasn't the case!
Thank you for being here all along the way for the languorpsychedelicness.
Spoken like a true Maker, Nathan--this work calls you! And much to the delight of your readers, you humbly submit to the process and allow it to be born onto the page. I'm so glad you shared this one. I had a blast reading it.
Nathan, The Sernox was intriguing. As to your comment about the first-person narrative, it has a certain strength, but also forces the writer to be more careful about what his narrator can say and what has to stay outside the knowledge (but of course I'm assuming we don't have an omniscient narrator). I like cases where a first-person narrative meets an unreliable narrator...
Thanks Levant, appreciate your thoughts. That inherent constraint of first person is why I am so drawn to it, I think.
One of the books that I read last year and loved was "The Book of the New Sun" by Gene Wolfe. He plays a lot with first person unreliable narrator in that story and I think it's a compelling piece of science fiction/fantasy.
For some reason, Gene Wolfe is an author who did not come into my scope that much (I think I read a random book), but I will pay more attention to his works.
Just to reiterate Alexander’s point, Nathan, you are a fantastically gifted writer whose words astonish and inspire, not just me, but so many here on Substack. It is always a joy to read any of your pieces no matter the subject or genre, so I look forward to many more in the years to come
Regarding first person narrative. I don’t write in the first person much. Maybe I’m scared that too much of the real me, loosened from the trappings of day to day life, will appear on the page so I always pull back from that. Who knows. However, as I mentioned before, you do that brilliantly in any narrative, making me totally believe in the characters that we are either inhabiting or watching as they live their lives. It’s a rare skill and one you should, like with all your writing, be very proud of 👍🏼
Thank you, those are some lovely words right there. Appreciate it. That means a lot.
I'd love to see you experiment with the first person, but I can understand if there's some trepidation. What you did with third person you do wonderfully!
I am not a writer. I am fascinated with the unreliable narrator. ;) Brilliant. I dig this wrap-up to the Sernox for many reasons. These two ideas wrapping around each other is one of them.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read the parts of The Sernox. The unnamed protagonist would, no doubt, be comforted to know you heard their story.
It’s shocking to me that you say you’re not a writer. I actually laughed out loud. You are a magnificent character-word-pathos-truth-smith!
And I’m so glad you let yourself tumble head-over-heels into word-combo feely-ness. I often found myself slowing down while reading Sernox, wanting to savor each choice, and allow more than just plot/narrative but the visceral gestalt to move me.
Having just watched Taylor Swift's Eras tour on streaming, I am struck by the fact that your storytelling styles might actually have much in common. Curious as to whether you know much of her work or have ever thought that before?
I couldn't figure out how to make this comment not sound weird, so forgive if it does and know I just gave up on trying and put it out there, ha. 🙂 You and Taylor are both phenomenal artists!
This is such a great comment Renee, in part because I have no idea what it means! I've never seen any Taylor Swift. I know a few of her songs of course, and she recently did an Eras show here in Melbourne, but beyond knowing the hype I couldn't say a thing about her.
I'm flattered though ;)
I didn't realise the Eras Tour had any storytelling, I thought it was her performing her songs? Please enlighten me 😁
"I’m not a writer." you say? That is a lie. We know the truth. Everyone does. You are a writer, passionate and gifted. Nobody is perfect and knowing all the rules doesn't make you a writer. Writing does. Here's to a finished story and to many more to come, ahem, Brae... ;)
*raises glass*
Cheers, Alexander. Thank you.
Brae has been glancing my way a lot these last few weeks. I think that is most certainly where I need to focus next.
Looking forward to it!
Agreed!
People have this weird thing about what makes you an artist or an author. If you walk most days, you consider yourself a walker, if you read you’re a reader, likewise if you do art or ‘put pen to paper’, you’re an artist or a writer. The degree of skill has nothing to do with it, although the fact that there are quite a few of us lurking on this side of the screen, appears to indicate a degree of talent. So forget ‘the rules’ and just let the muse come through you. Enjoy yourself dear fellow. We’ll be quietly hanging around eager to see the results. Hugs and best wishes. 🤗🤗😘
Thanks Beth, appreciate your lovely words as always 🤗
The muse has a habit of flittering into existence and then darting away, as I'm sure it does for everyone.
What a brilliant postscript to completely complete your first fiction. So honest and raw, even our good friend Cărtărescu seems to grapple with some of the territory you feel unsure of. Clearly this is just human or even more so, a deeply philosophical response to the creation of art.
Agree with Alexander, you are a writer without a doubt, and a gifted one. Whether you share with those you know personally or not makes no difference to US as readers. I guess it depends why you want to share. (I would, but also, secrets can be nice.)
One could imagine this story as a novella in a collection of several. Maybe it's just my current mirror as I'm considering shortening two drafts I'm working on into novella form and adding a third for a complete trilogy of seemingly disparate subjects. Hmm. Your vision and experimentation (as well as the use of first person, in your way) have been inspirational for me. Thanks for giving us even more of the author behind the story here. :)
That's so kind to say, Kate. I'm feel honoured if anything I have written has inspired you.
I think part of the reason why Solenoid gripped me so much was the apparent struggle and reflection that Cărtărescu seemed to be describing.
I love the idea of several novellas being folded into a collection. As Alexander poked at, Brae will likely be next. Precipice remains too sprawling for now, so for that I will keep at the fragments and dip in and out of the storyline.
I'm excited for your new incoming novella!
All of this! Yes.
[Incoming novel, maybe part of a series? Not sure. Novellas in the works in the background. Enjoying the freedom of them. Somehow they feel hors-catégorie.]
Each word finds a match and ignites the next word to support a conflagration that consumes the reader to enhance and stir the embers that raise the imagination to the sky. The rest is ashes stirred with water, tears of what could have been, but wasn’t. The next story develops like the Phoenix to entice your fingers on keyboard and power strokes to slay another creature that lurks in your forest. I await to walk that cleared path.
Hands down one of the best comments on anyone's Substack ever, Richard! I love this. Thank you.
The truth is in your words. Set them free.
Nathan, my first response is to question if this is a story within a story. Who is talking here? You? A character? Is this you or a character: "Like always, I had no idea what I was doing. I just wrote, typing out sentences that sounded believable but with zero plan. All I knew was that I wanted to write about a myth." No matter. The person speaking is a discovery writer, not a plotter. A discovery writer discovers what they are writing by writing. A plotter figures it all out before they write. I enjoyed the piece.
I can't help but have a wry smile at this, Harley. You are the first to wonder, and I was deliberate in a few passages to try to nudge the voice that way. I like some of the ambiguity, but for the large part I was writing this from within myself ;)
A discovery writer is *such* a better term than "pantser". I hate the latter.
Thank you for being here. I always love reading your thoughts.
I don’t like pantser either. I got discovery writer from Joanna Penn, a writer has a podcast on writing and publishing. thecreativepenn.com
Thanks, Harley, didn't know about Joanna. Appreciate the link.
She is amazingly prolific, both fiction and nonfiction (mainly about self-publishing)
I was wondering that too!
So glad you did this. Such a brilliantly ephemeral piece, it lends itself very much to self-analysis. A few things caught my attention:
"Because I’ve had no training.
I just know what I like." - I like to compare these feelings to musicians. The vast majority of popular musicians have had absolutely no training. They are just emulating what they've heard. For some reason (myself included, even thought I also have no 'training') we tend to ascribe more academic influence to being able to write well. Perhaps this is because the publishing world tends to be dominated by academics, unlike the recording industry. All of that to say, I think it's important for you and I to emphasize our lack of training as you did here, so that others like us can take confidence.
"First person is, to me, the most beautiful and compelling form of literature. It is a constrained and personal account. It is the closest we come to our own lives, ones that suffer their own unreliable narrators, existing and shaping our stories each day, the stories of catastrophic love and despair. It fascinates me." - It's interesting because I almost read this as if you, Slake, were the protagonist... of course, there was no evidence to suggest such, and I knew it was not 'you'. But it's how our minds are wired.
Once again I can compare to music. When we hear someone sing about how they're in love with someone, why is it that we always assume that actually the "I" is personal, that it has to do with the person singing it? Can they not also inhabit a character?
Part of my pseudonym is to try and escape this relation. I want people when they read my first person to immediately know it's not 'me'. It's not always successful.
"Meaning, most likely, that the initial chapter will need to be tweaked." - Oh???
The never-ending temptation.
Because I feel the same about first person. It's easiest to write in, and people tend to like reading it the best. It's easier to suspend your disbelief as a reader.
Thanks so much Clancy. Yours retros really have inspired me here, so thanks.
You know, I hadn't thought about the music industry but that's a very astute observation.
RE: first person. Yeah, I think this is partly why I love it. There are, presumably, glimpses into the mind of the author, regardless of how loose those may be, but equally they can be entirely divorced and occupying the character. And again, I've never considered this in the context of music. I've always thought "well this love song is clearly born from the singer's experiences". But you're totally right.
I love your take on why you're writing under a pseudonym.
Yeah, the temptation to edit. I don't know, maybe it's not necessary.
I'd be curious to know what the population preference on first vs third is. I've always figured people much prefer third.
I think that on Substack, people VASTLY prefer the first person.
I too must agree with Alex above; you say you are not a writer and yet, you write, you have
written, therefore in the truest sense of the verb: to write, you are a writer. And if not then your witchery of words, of divine prose fooled every one of us! Fin. I cannot say more other than that I believed… from the very start that this was you. I
« I strove to build a style that was as rich and poetic and languorous as I could manage. One that was filled with words that maybe I didn’t even know were real.»
You succeeded, in all of those too, in brilliant ephemeral bites.
I wait for the next with impatience!
Thank you, Susie. That means a lot. In some ways, having that blurred definition of what is real or fiction perhaps adds to the mystery.
Congrats on finishing! When done right there's nothing false about fiction.
Lovely comment Richard, thank you.
I so appreciate this. I'm not going to lie, I was a little nervous going in, purely because sometimes a thing picked apart can be a thing murdered. I remember having to take a poetry class and found it excruciating, especially when it came to picking apart and logic-ing poems I loved. I just keep thinking, "Stop! You're killing it!". Anyway, that was my fear, here. But this was beautiful and only served to deepen my love of the story, and my fascination with the fact that it really did seem to have a life of its very own. You were most successful in securing a rich, poetic and languorous style. Languorous being the perfect word. So languorous, in fact (I'm really enjoying using the word languorous, now) that it bordered on the psychedelic. I think one part of why I enjoyed the story so much was actually due to your pre and post ambles, which gave the impression of a writer semi-tortured by a wily muse who was insisting all sorts of unreasonable demands...
Anyway, brilliant work. I feel you deserve a 'holiday', or a 'rest' (in the Victorian sense of 'actually checking myself into a psych ward') now.
And, to echo everyone else, "I'm not a writer", shut up Nathan.
Thanks for the lovely comment, Chloe. You know, it didn't occur to me that I might be treading down a path of butchering things when I started writing this. I'm relieved to hear that wasn't the case!
Thank you for being here all along the way for the languorpsychedelicness.
I would love a holiday, psych ward or no 😆
Spoken like a true Maker, Nathan--this work calls you! And much to the delight of your readers, you humbly submit to the process and allow it to be born onto the page. I'm so glad you shared this one. I had a blast reading it.
Thanks, Ann. The work definitely calls me :)
I'm so pleased to hear you enjoyed reading this.
Nathan, The Sernox was intriguing. As to your comment about the first-person narrative, it has a certain strength, but also forces the writer to be more careful about what his narrator can say and what has to stay outside the knowledge (but of course I'm assuming we don't have an omniscient narrator). I like cases where a first-person narrative meets an unreliable narrator...
Thanks Levant, appreciate your thoughts. That inherent constraint of first person is why I am so drawn to it, I think.
One of the books that I read last year and loved was "The Book of the New Sun" by Gene Wolfe. He plays a lot with first person unreliable narrator in that story and I think it's a compelling piece of science fiction/fantasy.
For some reason, Gene Wolfe is an author who did not come into my scope that much (I think I read a random book), but I will pay more attention to his works.
It's the only thing (so far) of his that I've read, but I found it fascinating and would like to read more of his oeuvre.
Excuse me? Not a writer?! Au contraire mon frere! You are doing it! Gorgeously! Lushly! Beautifully! Keep going, we 💜 you...
🤗🧡
Thank you my friend. Lots of love to you x
Just to reiterate Alexander’s point, Nathan, you are a fantastically gifted writer whose words astonish and inspire, not just me, but so many here on Substack. It is always a joy to read any of your pieces no matter the subject or genre, so I look forward to many more in the years to come
Regarding first person narrative. I don’t write in the first person much. Maybe I’m scared that too much of the real me, loosened from the trappings of day to day life, will appear on the page so I always pull back from that. Who knows. However, as I mentioned before, you do that brilliantly in any narrative, making me totally believe in the characters that we are either inhabiting or watching as they live their lives. It’s a rare skill and one you should, like with all your writing, be very proud of 👍🏼
Thank you, those are some lovely words right there. Appreciate it. That means a lot.
I'd love to see you experiment with the first person, but I can understand if there's some trepidation. What you did with third person you do wonderfully!
I am not a writer. I am fascinated with the unreliable narrator. ;) Brilliant. I dig this wrap-up to the Sernox for many reasons. These two ideas wrapping around each other is one of them.
Thank you, Holly ;)
Thank you so much for taking the time to read the parts of The Sernox. The unnamed protagonist would, no doubt, be comforted to know you heard their story.
It’s shocking to me that you say you’re not a writer. I actually laughed out loud. You are a magnificent character-word-pathos-truth-smith!
And I’m so glad you let yourself tumble head-over-heels into word-combo feely-ness. I often found myself slowing down while reading Sernox, wanting to savor each choice, and allow more than just plot/narrative but the visceral gestalt to move me.
I really didn't expect my little line about not knowing what I'm doing to spark so many replies from everyone ☺️
Thank you for always being here and sharing your thoughts. I love that The Sernox slowed time for you.
Having just watched Taylor Swift's Eras tour on streaming, I am struck by the fact that your storytelling styles might actually have much in common. Curious as to whether you know much of her work or have ever thought that before?
I couldn't figure out how to make this comment not sound weird, so forgive if it does and know I just gave up on trying and put it out there, ha. 🙂 You and Taylor are both phenomenal artists!
Hehehe.
This is too much of a compliment for me to take!! ☺️
This is such a great comment Renee, in part because I have no idea what it means! I've never seen any Taylor Swift. I know a few of her songs of course, and she recently did an Eras show here in Melbourne, but beyond knowing the hype I couldn't say a thing about her.
I'm flattered though ;)
I didn't realise the Eras Tour had any storytelling, I thought it was her performing her songs? Please enlighten me 😁