I started a newsletter on substack. Here’s an excerpt from the third post. Read in full (and subscribe for free) here.
A lot of the fiction I’ve written was made during a time that I was having an especially hard time living in the present moment. I realized that I could do something through writing that I wasn’t able to do in real life. When I described uneasy situations in writing, I was at ease as the narrator, in my ability to describe. In fact, I loved describing uneasy situations, because I felt a mastery over them while writing that I couldn’t enjoy in the moments while they happened. My desire for control made sense. One of the things that made me uneasy or led to dissociation in real life was the lack of control in many real life situations which made me feel small and uncomfortable. There’s been a lot of big factors outside of my control that have weighed on me in daily life, and that have had an outsized influence on the direction of my life. Unable to feel masterful in these situations, I’ve often turned to writing, where I can paint things in a way that make sense to me. One of my favorite things I’ve written is Ghost Town, for a 2012 art show of the same name by Hanna Liden. I remember writing it in a rush. It’s also the purest piece of fiction I’ve ever written in the sense that it’s not based on real life events per se, but simply draws and expands upon certain feelings and moods. It’s a short piece, more of a sketch. The narrator is a ghost living in downtown NYC. It’s not lost on me that this piece I identify with so much is narrated by a spectre: something or someone who’s both there but not. A lingering presence who watches and wanders. NYC, of course, is a haunted place, imprinted with infinite memories of innumerable moments in countless lives that have moved through the city and its spaces over time. I felt especially at home in this supernatural, amorphous character, which unmoored me a bit from the need to accurately describe or convey things that had already happened to me. Read the rest (and subscribe) here.