CONSTELLATION OF VENTRILOQUISTS
a fragment of a novel plus a meditation on two audio files I recently heard involving friends from the scene
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The above piece of writing is another part of my work-in-progress I See Prism Threads which was published at Donāt Submit. I just want more people to read it. The novel, which has about 30,000 words so far, is intended to be a response to two trends I have seen lately in indie lit: autofiction and very dark āhorror vibes.ā Itās also possibly me shifting into another gear after the two relatively straightforward genre crime novels Blood Trip and The Tattletales into something which has some other literary slant or imaginative direction.
On Substack works of fiction donāt do as well as essays and personal non-fictional reflections. This is if you cling to the analytics. I just recently heard a conversation between William Duryea and Derek Maine on Duryeaās substack āchannelā where he has posted audio files of chats he has with people about publishing and in this case about YouTube videos. It was really absorbing and I thought the investigations into how to maximize viewership had a lot to say to how to formulate a good substack posts to get readers. Also, whether thinking in such a way was best for your āart.ā I admit I get caught up in looking at the numbers that substack shows me for every newsletter I send out. I try to deduce why something worked or didnāt. A while back I put out lots of newsletters called āLISTENINGSā which were essentially just groups of YouTube music videos I liked and wanted to share. I saw that these were not especially popular. I think people didnāt like clicking on a link and being taken away from the email containing the newsletter. Thereās probably ways around this but I decided to scale back and now I just put one or two YouTube links at the end of newsletters that are obviously optional and just extra atmospherics. I still think many people donāt click on those but I still put them on there. Not everything is about increasing numbers.
I have to answer for my tweet in which I replied to William Duryeaās tweet linking to the discussion on YouTube with Derek. I said among other things that I thought Williamās epistemology was flawed. I probably shouldnāt have said that, shouldnāt have injected my own criticisms into the discussion. I donāt mean it to be anything harsh, I just feel like the spirit of group debate is something there to be open to. William is a great leader and authority figure and critic himself. His commentaries are widely listened to at Misery Loves Company and in his conversations on small presses and now in his great YouTube video essays. I guess I just think that at times he has rhetorical maneuvers which give away that he is asserting something as universal or objective when I think they are either not as widely spread or require further inquiry and deconstruction. I think he sees opinions and attitudes among other people, their ways of thinking, critical mistakes other people are making in their thought processes, and turns them into intellectual trends to be criticized. āOftentimes people [x]ā¦ā I do it myself. I might be doing it right now. Maybe Iām wrong. Maybe Iāve been hanging out too long and listening to other people and imagining patterns within their modes of communication where they might not be. I donāt know why I see William as someone to be challenged in a collegial manner. I worked with him at The Last Estate and I found him to be the best editor I have ever worked with, he had so much authority and knowledge and I only ever thought one of my pieces was ready for publication when he gave his okay on it. I donāt think Iām alone in viewing him that way. Maybe I miss the discord where we would debate certain things; I havenāt been back there in months. I mourn the passage of The Last Estate and I viewed most of those other people there, including William, as friends. I still do. I sense an undeniable āmoving onā from that time and that era. Things have shifted under our feet. I donāt know how these things come to be, how changes happen. I see people trying new things, flying solo, and I support them and wish the best. I miss the days of working in a collaboration.
I donāt know how to relate to a lot of people. I heard another podcast episode of Self-Exposure by other people I know in the s end and it was troubling to hear the obvious pain and confusion in Sabrina Smallās voice as she recounted what had happened in New York recently. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts. I canāt really recreate it here. Itās a very candid example of something under the microscope, what went wrong socially in a group dynamic once it went from social media to social reality. I have often fantasized about how I would behave in a group setting with these other writers I consider my friends and colleagues. What would happen when we entered 3D life with each other. I would probably be useless. I think I have a big dose of agoraphobia and not fear of other people and fear of travel but just reclusiveness. I donāt see myself excelling in social situations involving other writers like Chicago is Better Than New York was. Although I wished I could have gone and met people in the flesh. Something about me needs to leave people as digital characters in an interactive diary-novel that unfolds like a serial. I know thatās fucked up.
Derek Maine is somebody I would like to be friends with and I think weāre cool with each other on Twitter but like with everybody else I donāt know where I stand with him. Or do I really need to know that? I have been guilty of sending letters to numerous acquaintances in my immediate indie lit surroundings and it sort of falls on the floor and dies ā not through anybodyās faults or deliberate doings, itās just not meant to happen. I think seeking more engagement with other writers is a tricky concept. I worry that I have grated on other people too much and driven off any chance of a greater friendship. Something about me turns other people off or introduces weird unpleasant vibes perhaps. Maybe itās not me but some other X factor. I donāt know. I would like to correspond with others more. Maybe thatās what Iām doing with this substack. Itās one side of a discussion.
I have gotten copies of my novel The Tattletales but things have been so busy here and there have been personal developments which have interfered with my enjoyment of having published the thing and sharing it with others. Weird voids and social dead zones. Personal health issues I wonāt get into right now. Itās a bad time and there is bad juju. Itās sucks because I really love this book and wish I could actively get it out there and see it in other peoplesā hands but everything is so weird.
I broke some fragile aspect of the delicate social mobile dangling overhead and itās out of balance. Or something. Or Iām expecting too much. Things moved on and I didnāt get the memorandum? I canāt strike the right chord. I should just focus on writing my stuff and less on being friends with people, or critical colleagues, or collaborators, or literary peers. Thereās an exhaustion. Thereās an obtuseness in me, an inability to sense when the partyās over and itās time to go home. I had this in college. I donāt know. Itās been a weird summer. And it isnāt even really happening, is the harshest part of it all.
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