Photographer, Rambler, Digital Artist, Reviewer of Video Games'
is a novelist as well?
Well, I didn't. Last week, during our usual comment battle - as has been our custom lately - he admitted, that he wrote a novella.... a long time ago.
What's more, he was kind enough to dig it up on the blockchain and share with me a sample of his writing from a time when he didn't have such magnificent beard just yet (am I right?)
Here you can find it on blockchain:
Of course I still like to passionately argue about details or plot holes from time to time, I won't deny it:) But enough about me, because this isn't a post about me. This post is about Melanie
The next paragraphs contain spoilers, so if you plan to read
@holoz0r's novella, please skip them.
Story outline
Your characters are alive, their thoughts vibrant and believable, but stagnant when the suspense builds. The action is going on around them not within them.
In spite of those failures Melanie does not bend her ideas and talent to please publishers. She is consistent in what she does and still dreams big. She has as much determination as she does dreaming in her. Apart from writing, Melanie has another addiction – the pain. Her palette is not very sophisticated - she maime mostly wrists, and usually with a knife. From what @holoz0r reveals to us - we know that she does this not only very often, but she has become a kind of expert in self-mutilation. It is frightening how methodically she carries out her craven ritual. Madness meets cold calculation. Need for pain - self-inflicted pain - satisfaction.
Melanie dances on a rope. She risks herself with a knife, a crazy car ride, smoking weed the day before an important meeting with her publisher.... Melanie is a textbook example of a self-destructive personality.
Despite all this adversity, despite the fact that her days almost consist of self-sabotage - Melanie manages to break the glass ceiling. She is given the chance to publish her novella.
We part with her at the exact moment when the old world closes behind her - she loses her day job and new perspectives open up to her - the opportunity to publish her book.
Melanie's Fall Review
The author does not give us any formulated judgements or answers to the questions which are bothering us during the reading. Oh no. He adds layers to the story with thought-out malice, forcing us to admire the terrifying, bloody scenes with beautiful metaphors, which he interlace with the harsh, blinding light of everyday life which so overwhelms Melanie.
The author plays with the reader, interweaving Melanie's inner monologues and ensuing character ideas with her reality. Daydreaming crashes on the rocks of everyday life - when her 'great achievement' is placed side by side with boring trivialities like having to pay rent. What's more, the author had the nerve to NOT WRITE THE END OF THIS STORY AND LEAVE IT WITH CLIFFHANGER!!! How dare he???
I have to admit that Melanie's story seemed a bit trite and clichéd at first. It reminded me that when I was a teenager it was extremely common to 'cut yourself'. Teenagers wore their wounds like badges of courage, or treated them as a ritual of passage. For parents they were a wake-up call '- oh I think I need to take an interest in my child'. Stories of this kind were so frequent and publicised that they ceased to be surprising. People became distanced and as a result - desensitised.
@holoz0r applied new colours onto this problem. He skilfully weaves the macabre between the smoothly constructed sentences. Carefully, drop by drop, he tied us to the main character, made us stop judging her behaviour, measuring it by our own measure. We like her, even though her choices drive us crazy. We forgive her, even though she makes the same mistake many times. And we believe in her, even though she does everything to squander her chances.
Let me leave you with a quote from the 16th part, and the hope that @holoz0r decides to continue this story after all:)
Everyone has to be insane in his or her own personal way. I reckon that everyone is insane, and that there is not one person that does not have some part of their sanity at least within question at some moments of their life. It's just that some people aren't as good as concealing it than others. Don't blame me if you don't want to believe this, but it's true, and I want you to remember it. EVERYONE IS INSANE.
Below you will find FanArt portraying Melanie but(!) in my Sleeping Kingdom.
Hivains, have a lovely weekend!
Yours,
Strega Azure
I used noname black pen, black acrylic ink, white acrylic ink, white gel-pen 'Sakkura' and dissolvent.
all rights reserved @strega.azure ©
