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I'm publishing an experimental novel on Ko-fi - here's the introduction...
Hi, below is the introduction to "A Christmas Story - AKA Clearglass" on Ko-fi, here: https://ko-fi.com/post/A-Christmas-Story--AKA-Clearglass--Introductio-Y8Y8QOCPW
It would be great if you came over to check it out, but am also going to repost the text here, too. Here it is:
A Christmas Story - AKA "Clearglass" - Introduction
Some time ago near Christmas Day I was sitting in the quiet solitude of Winter, and thinking about how we are told that Christianity colonised the pagan world of Northern Europe, replacing all its old festivals.
Modern writers with a love of folk horror will tell us that traditional Christmas images and rituals have a far deeper, longer past. Some of what they say may be true, much of it nobody knows for sure. But it made me think about the wonder of midwinter and the vital role it marked in ancient cultures shackled to the round of vegetative production we pretend we are not governed by today. And the act of living in Nature really hit me hard.
I began to think about the possibility of traditions stretching a long way further back than Christianity, to the raising of monoliths and megalithic complexes, to the wonder and fear ancient humanity must have felt. And I began to wonder and I began to fear.
I wondered what a world would look like that was the other way round to the one we know. A world that used some Christian ideas in a fully developed pagan myth cycle of its own. I felt the fear those people felt, living in the vast empty spaces of the world, in the snowbound retreats of deep winter woodland, seeking to placate an unpredictable nature.
So, I began to write a book that revolved around rituals. And then I began to wonder who it was that lived in this world and why.
I first called the book: "A Christmas Story" as a working title in my notes. Later, for reasons that will become clear, I called it "Clearglass" - partially because I thought that had something more commercial about it than my generic original title.
But I think in my heart, I still think of this first section of this book as "A Christmas Story".
When I started writing it, I really wanted to write from the heart. This meant that I was willing to experiment with creative output in a way I never have before. Be prepared. Sections of this book will be in verse, much will be hallucinatory. There will be stories within stories, dead ends and confusions. But there is a story at its heart, and hopefully an enigma.
It has grown into a plan expanding over 4 novels. And here's my problem: I often refer backwards and change previous events in order to tie in with later events that alter the significance of happenings in earlier parts of the book. I looked at this habit of revising as new meaning is revealed, and realised I may actually never finish all four books if I keep doing that.
So what I decided to do instead was publish where I've got to. In a finished draft at some future date, this text may change again. But for now, this is where it has arrived.
Much of this first novel I wrote in trance. Literally in dream-eyed trance. It embraces folk horror, fantasy, science fiction, literary fiction, children's writing, magic realism and myth. I suppose it is inherently unstable, a bit like me.
I started making images to accompany the story. The featured image at the top of this post is one I made from a composite of pictures I collected and adjusted in Photoshop. Here's another:
Later, when I showed an early draft of the book to Selene, a friend of mine, she loved it so much she drew me an image for one of the sections you will read in the future. I will share that with you, too, when the time comes. But if you like the imagery my book conjures in your head and you want to create your own images - let me know. I'd be glad to include your images in these posts.
I decided to publish this here, now, because of the time of year. It's Hallowe'en tonight, and then there is the one big festival for Europe on Midwinter's Day, and somehow I feel like I'd like to run a different narrative in my head from the predominant one.
Running another narrative is something I like to do, sometimes with strange results. I have an office where I lived for several months at the beginning of this year, ignoring other people and the narrative of the life we all have to live, running down my savings to escape from it for a while by writing later sections of this book. It was an intense period. There was a moment when I left the office to have a business meeting and found it difficult to converse with the physical people in the room because my characters kept talking to me.
Like I say, inherently unstable. ;)
In any case, the book is an obsession.
I would love it if it became yours.
Matt Wingett
Southsea, Hallowe'en 2023.
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