.png)
Voice Within: A Storybook by Storytellers
This podcast narrates to you short stories, poems and letters from a collective of authors. It is a simple cup of tea in hand, or a long drive kind of moment, to truly immerse yourself in a tale or two. For the love of a good story!
Voice Within: A Storybook by Storytellers
Multidimensional Storytelling: Breaking the Rules While Honoring Structure: An interview with CJ Melchizedek
CJ Melchizedek illuminates the dance between creative rebellion and structured storytelling, sharing how his journey as a multidimensional fiction writer evolved through self-published novels, collaborative graphic novels, and experimental narrative forms.
Come join Lee Rickwood who interviews CJ on his own journey in being a published author.
• Writing the novel "Olivius" (2010) which combined linear and non-linear storytelling elements
• Collaborating with a comic book artist on "Dark Hope Legacies" (2013), learning about narrative structure through visual storytelling
• Publishing "Emerging from the Cave" (2022), experimenting with embedded imagery and innovative narrative perspective shifts
• Finding that structure provides necessary guidance for readers while creating space for multidimensional concepts
• Exploring the integration of spiritual awakening and Indigenous connection to country in upcoming novel
• Discovering that clear structure can actually enhance the communication of complex, multidimensional ideas
• Balancing flow and inspiration with narrative frameworks to create engaging stories
Don't be afraid of structure, but remember that it's just an element of storytelling that you can resource yourself from. Be willing to give yourself space and follow your inspiration—that feeling and passion should drive you.
Check out CJ's publications:
Co-authored:
Dark Hope legacies: https://amzn.asia/d/2Cq1K1T
Authored:
Emerging from the Cave (print): https://amzn.asia/d/b0Pe4A4
Emerging from the Cave (ebook): https://amzn.asia/d/eB1nKPk
Threads of Ketu (short story – ebook): https://amzn.asia/d/3PuiWCX
For more information or to contact CJ directly about his work, email chrisjameswriteraustralia@gmail.com
voice-within.co
voicewithin_anthology
voicewithin_publications
Welcome back to the studio CJ. Good to see you again.
Speaker 2:Thanks very much, Leigh.
Speaker 1:Yay, one of the things I'm looking forward to talking with you about today is your process in all of this, but the overarching theme is structure and narrative, so let's go down that little road.
Speaker 2:Beautiful.
Speaker 1:The first question is what are some of the completed or professional projects that you've worked on? If you could fill in some of that history?
Speaker 2:Sure. So a huge project I did and self-published back in 2010 was a multidimensional fiction novel called olivius, and um that one or the cave.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a different one that's a different one, yeah, so this is way back, uh, 2010. I published that, yeah, and I was looking for a publisher for years but um couldn't find one, so ended up doing it myself. But it was, um, that was a very big project like, uh, a big, you know, proper sized novel 140 000 words. Um, and, yeah, that um it was also had a non-linear element to the story. It had two modern characters that went through a couple of months of experience, which was the linear part of the story, and then a third character who was a government experiment that time-travelled and things like that. So their part in the story was nonlinear, so it would go backwards and forwards and all of that. So it taught me a lot about that project. Taught me a lot about how could I tell a linear story whilst also telling a multidimensional, non-linear one, and put it into form.
Speaker 1:And so there were two themes and two approaches. Did they meet and weave?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they intersected. So it was. There was a story arc of the modern people and this mysterious character kept appearing and then eventually, at about two-thirds of the way through the story, they met and the modern people became the evolution of the semi-spiritual entity, who was also a government experiment, who was trying to escape from the clutches of the corrupt people who created him.
Speaker 2:So it intersected quite beautifully, and I say that not to honk my own horn but because I actually wrote the narrative in an altered state and I didn't know what was happening next. So when it intersected it became that the modern people had the key and the gift for the multidimensional character to set themselves free. But yeah, so it kind of was an education in how can I tell a linear story but how can I tell a multidimensional way out their story and weave them in together.
Speaker 1:And then the contemporary story gets changed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ooh, I love the sound of that.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately I don't have that in print anymore, but I'd love to get it back to that space. But there are copies out there. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It sounds very contemporary. It sounds like the kind of stories that are becoming more and more popular. It sounds like you might have been a bit ahead of your time, yeah, yeah, was it a little dystopian, or was it more about the character, the multidimensional character, being someone who needed assistance, and it's more about that positive story being told.
Speaker 2:It was definitely a positive spin because it was actually about not just the hope of the human heart but the power of it because this being was 25,000 years old and couldn't escape from this reality and felt very like they wanted to go home in a spiritual sense, and it was the power and beauty of the humble human heart that ended up setting them free, and so that was. Yeah, there's a positive spin in there. I don't actually write dystopian stories. I'm very sensitive, you know, if I go and like read something bad that happens in the news and then it affects me. So I just kind of keep in my own space for that reason and it sounds like a little alchemical what you do.
Speaker 1:You take the potentially dark stories and the how did you sum it up? The hope and the love of the human heart. How wonderful, let's celebrate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. Yeah, yeah it was. Yeah, it went from a battle and a drama and good guys and bad guys, and the bad guys were way more powerful and the good guys were humble, and then it just became something else. Like I said, I wrote that narrative in an altered state and kind of it came through me when I was quite young.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it was interesting, and have you got some other projects? Did that evolve into something else or did you go off in a different direction?
Speaker 2:Well, I went off in a different direction because I met a comic book artist oh, a comic book, yeah, yeah, who wanted to, who had become been drawing for decades but wanted to do, you know, a real professional project. And they were. It's the craziest story. Actually, they were wanting a writer to collaborate with and kind of like.
Speaker 2:He's quite a scientifically minded kind of character but was actually preying on the train in Melbourne to find somebody. And he said, just as he'd finished that he heard this knock, knock, knock. And it was me, after a night insomnia with a. It was some halva, like some Jewish candy in this box that I was trying to eat to keep awake, banging it on the ground. And he came over and he said would you be a writer?
Speaker 1:by any chance.
Speaker 2:Wow, that sounds like something out of a book and I said yes, and that began the collaboration on what became Dark Hope Legacies, which was, yeah, an Australian graphic novel, meaning a long comic for adults. So that taught me so much about narrative structure, but also structure itself as a writer.
Speaker 1:So in that collaboration, where did you meet? Did you just do the story and he did the pictures, or the pictures came first, or how did all that happen?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a big learning curve because in the comic book world, like in the professional sphere that's big in America and Japan generally, you have the artists that do all the drawing, the famous artists.
Speaker 2:And then the writers, which actually map out the entire story from all the way through, generate all the characters and their histories or, in the case of when they're DC or whatever, they draw on Batman's history and rewrite that and often map it out with vague drawings that say this and this happened. So I learnt that that was the kind of comic book writer role and I got to experience and do some of that but also feel the artist. He was very clear on what the whole story was about and so I actually I created quite a few of the characters, but we co-wrote the story and the narrative and it was an amazing experience.
Speaker 1:So how long was that process from beginning to end or, I guess, to completion of the work and then the publication after that?
Speaker 2:Brutally long. I think we started in 2008 and published it in 2013, which might have even been the end of 2013. So maybe it was more available to the public in 2014. Okay, yeah. It was very long and because I'd gone. Yeah, I went through it myself with the one I was talking about before, doing it myself and you've got a project that about before, but doing it myself and you've got a project that big and you're doing it yourself, it takes a long time, yes, and so it was published in 2013 and that one still exists out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep.
Speaker 1:You can still find that on Amazon, I believe, and have you collaborated with one another since.
Speaker 2:We have even to create an edition two of that same work. But Phil's life has just taken other directions. We love working together. We get along great.
Speaker 1:But it's just that… Making that time time both of you available, it's pretty tricky totally yeah, yeah, so, um, but but they did do another one.
Speaker 2:They did um dark them on facebook, dark hope legacies, dhc, anyway, and um, they've done two, so I wrote, co-wrote the first one and he co-wrote the second one with somebody else yeah, and how did it work for you having images to work off?
Speaker 1:or you didn't really pay much attention to the images in the way you wrote?
Speaker 2:No, it was incredible for me because I'm such a visual writer Like I'd love to be able to just write movie scripts and then get made, because that's the way my mind works.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's already a movie in your head. Yeah, and the multidimensional thing. It's really hard. Like one of my stories has three characters in it a ghost, an ascended master and a galaxy and they interweave and so to actually get that idea into just words on paper that people can understand it's so hard and galaxy's a character, so it's got its voice and all of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll share that one with you sometime, but I'm hoping to publish that in the next year. But the point being is when I could draw an image you can literally articulate that there's three different characters, three different levels of reality on one page, in one picture. And so it was a huge game changer for me. Even emerging from the cave, which we can talk about in a minute, the latest professional project I've worked on that has an image embedded into the story.
Speaker 1:Ooh yeah, can you develop that more? What do you mean by the image embedded in the story? Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2:So, Phil, actually you're saying have we collaborated since Phil worked on Emerging from the Cave?
Speaker 1:Ah, it's all coming back CJ.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So this time last year I believe it was I was doing the crowdfunding campaign for Emerging from the Cave. Then I think we launched it in March or so, so it's not that old, but that's a multidimensional fiction novella that I did last year and Phil drew the front cover and he also drew the one image that sits embedded in the narrative in the book.
Speaker 1:When you say embedded in the narrative in the book. So where does that image sit in the book?
Speaker 2:Sure, say, embedded in the narrative in the book. So where does that image sit in the book? Sure, so in that story it involves a modern man going through a spiritual awakening journey, but it also involves a lot of ancestral memory. So what I wanted to do is I had an idea, and the idea was that he was going to go so deeply back into the ancestral memory that he was literally going to disappear and the narrative would be then told from a different narrative perspective. So I was just thinking, oh, take it, you know, just stay in third person and just tell it like that. But then I was like what if a god from that ancient tribe narrated that part? So that's what I did, and to provide character sorry, not character audience orientation, meaning the reader knowing where it's gone, instead of just saying this god is now going to talk, phil drew an image of this horned thunder god and we put it there in the book.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it's there. He's speaking to you when that voice is part of the story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow.
Speaker 1:Wow, so it sounds like it hasn't really been a linear. You know your projects. They're kind of a little bit, some're kind of overlapping, ones here, ones there. There have been quite a few through your life, so are there other ones that you want to mention?
Speaker 2:Many that I haven't finished. I mean I finished my first finally. I say finally because I was already writing for nearly 10 years by then, but finished my first novel manuscript, yeah, when I was 23 but, yeah, yeah, and so there's there's things that that are unpublished and haven't been finished in the vault yeah, in the vault.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. Um, yeah, it has. It does feel non-linear, but also like there's a definite definitely learnt about narrative as I went on particularly with wanting to write multidimensional fiction and embed really unusual things into the story. Like learning about the comic world was a huge thing in there.
Speaker 1:Exciting, and when you shared in our last conversation you talked about how you began by trying to write this novel. So in the beginning you were doing these epic writing sessions and creating vast amounts of words on paper, but it sounds like you went in a lot of different directions after that and then you've got this one published novel or not published novel, one completed novel. Have there been other novels you've completed?
Speaker 2:Not published. So I've got a self-published novel in 2010, then Dark Hope Legacies, the graphic novel, in 2013, and then Emerging from the Cave last year and that is a novel or novella. Novella yeah, yeah, so it's probably about a third of the size of a novel.
Speaker 1:And it seems like you've gone from a secret writer in your bedroom as a young child into all these amazing collaborations, which is exciting.
Speaker 2:I love collaborating with people. Yeah, definitely so I guess.
Speaker 1:that takes us to the next question, because your writing is not your typical writing, so in many ways, in terms of structure and narrative, you've got other elements that you're bringing in to the way you do things. So what? In terms of, I guess, structure first of all? How would you understand? Tell us a little bit about how you see structure.
Speaker 2:Structure is very important, because if you want an audience, you have to at least in some way focus on structure meaning that there's things which readers expect and desire to feel satisfied in reading a story.
Speaker 2:And so, although you can always break the rules, I find structure anchoring. It's like some of the things I'm doing. It's so strange, like the voice within story, a love letter to humankind. It's written from the perspective of an ancient tree spirit. But if I just really focused on my own expression and I just want to say this really unique thing, and that's it, and don't think about the reader, and no one, nobody, would want to read that story because it wouldn't take them on a journey. So what can you fill us in of?
Speaker 1:your understanding, and how you see it, of structure being a journey for the reader.
Speaker 2:Sure, it's like point A is the beginning of the story and that is. It's often a shake-up, like presenting like in the cave or go back to emerging from the cave. Shake-up like presenting like in the cave or go back to Emerging from the Cave. In that book, if you read it, you'll find a modern recluse that society might find a failure, whose life you get a sense of their reality and where they're at, and then there's a big shake-up for that character.
Speaker 2:And so that reality, that sense of normality that the reader's getting introduced to, is also being broken by a new tide of a calling to become something else, or say, in the case of the love letter to humankind, you're getting introduced to a reality, but in a way that makes you want to get drawn into that reality. If that makes sense, like that's how I see the point A, it's either there's a reality there and a shake-up, or there's a there's a reality that the reader finds alluring or attractive, because that's what that's. What I'm trying to achieve as a writer is to generate some content that people want to want to be a part of.
Speaker 1:They're drawn in. They can't help but be drawn in. That's right, yeah, it's something that's quite different or something that's unexpected.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and then. So that journey is about essentially going from that, uh, beginning point of the story eventually to get to the end and, um, hopefully by the end, uh, that reality that's being shaken up, say in the case of emerging from the cave, is the character is expanded in all these ways, but realise all these spiritual part of themselves, taken responsibility, accepted the change, began to integrate it into their life and then starting to bring it back to the world.
Speaker 1:That's a bit like the hero's journey A transformational journey is the word that popped into my head when you were describing that. So you're talking about the hero's journey. Lots of people know a lot about that. Lots of people don't know anything about it, lots of people. So do you want to just give us a snapshot of how you see the hero's journey?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, it's the monomyth that Joseph Campbell, the work of Joseph Campbell, made popular and accessible to the modern world. And, to be honest with you, I only know it a little bit. I only got in. I mean, I knew about it, I only got introduced to it as a part of storytelling about maybe four years ago Because of what you were writing or because of how you were writing? Because of who was helping me edit my writing, a mentor of sorts.
Speaker 2:They used to be a community TAFE creative writing teacher and then when I looked into it, I was it. I was like, oh yeah, a lot of my stories, particularly the larger works, they do follow this organically this, yeah, organically. So that's, um, the hero's journey is. It's a kind of a marker for how for the hero being the main character of the story how they're likely to evolve and what processes they're likely to go through from point A to point B, from the beginning to the end of the story.
Speaker 1:So the way you described your two ways of progressing the story through to its end sounds closer to the first one you described. Of that, something challenging comes. They meet the challenge and then conquer the challenge and return change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, yeah, yeah. So that's kind of like the stories I write, where the characters are usually human, like emerging from the cave.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like you're bringing in these other ways of approaching things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think with the other way.
Speaker 2:If we use a love letter to humankind as an example because it's a voice within story, in addition to the point A is not so much a reality that we find ourselves sharing with the main character that gets shaken up, it's more a reality that's unusual and hopefully alluring, which is the reality of this ancient tree saying hey, I want to speak with all of you, humankind. Can you please listen deeply and quietly, because I need to say something here. So that becomes, as I said, more about how, if I'm a writer, how do I present that in a way where the person's going to be like, oh wow, I want to keep reading this. It's going to be like a kind of magnet of sorts. So that becomes the point a in in that kind of fiction. And then the, the journey is um, it's about getting to the end of the story, where the, the point has been made or the message has been fully articulated or delivered yeah, yeah, and there's a sense of landing, hopefully for the reader, like oh okay I'm in that.
Speaker 1:I'm there now, not just hearing about it yeah. So I guess why is structure important, generally speaking, in those like you've outlined your process and you did mention that it's important because it needs to. That's what the reader needs for the story to land. Have you got anything to add to why the structure?
Speaker 2:yeah, definitely, definitely. I think like if I go back in time in my own head and um, like the, the, the stories I was writing when I was young, like they, those larger projects. I didn't get all the way through, I abandoned them and the the first one I finished was was my third try at doing something like that, and and that was the novel. Yeah, that was a novel, Not the one I published but I gave it to some people and they were like, ooh, this is hard to read you know, and it made me more aware of the reader.
Speaker 2:And I think structure is important because you get introduced. If you're passionate about writing, you get more introduced to kind of the language of writing and the infrastructure of writing. You can put it in those kind of words.
Speaker 1:The culture of writing.
Speaker 2:The culture of writing, the building blocks of writing. And yeah, and it doesn't have to take over, it's just an element of the whole thing of your inspiration and and your drive and focus and um desire and capacity to act on that. But the the structure is, it's a whole. You know, it's a world unto itself and it can give you a lot. Sometimes it can be a humbling thing or something that feels like it can be hampering.
Speaker 1:Like, I feel like that because I want to do such strange things. How do I fit?
Speaker 2:it into this little box, yeah, yeah, but it can give you so much as a writer and evolve your craft so much to focus on it and meet that challenge. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow. So I guess what I wanted to find out from you is do you find it hard to follow or create a structure? Or create a structure, it sounds like it's still something that's evolving very much within you, and you're following traditional ways but also carving out your own ways. So how does that look for you?
Speaker 2:sure, um, these days, like I suppose there's um, there's two different things going on. Like I'm currently trying to get my next novel completed and published, and, um, that's a very hero's journey type thing that's very linear but has non-linear elements in it, but that for me that's kind of like I'm happy to write in that and I enjoy it. But that's different to all of the crazy wild ideas I get and go. I wonder if I can actually pull that off.
Speaker 2:That's what happened with Emerging from the Cave, because if you get a copy of that and read it, you're going to get some shocks as a reader and yeah. So I've got all these ideas as well where I'm like that's just so insane, I want to see if I can do that. So, yeah, there's that for me as well. It's like I love playing with and taking the narrative structures now that I've learned more what some of them are and bending them or moving them around, so that it's unusual for people and enjoyable for myself to kind of see if I can evolve my craft through writing something different.
Speaker 1:Sounds like, as well as creating this very unique kind of world, you're very much playing in the same way, a unique narrative and a unique kind of structure as well. That's part of the joy and pleasure it sounds to me like. Is that the case?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, yeah, yeah, part of the joy and pleasure. It sounds to me like. Is that the case? Yeah, oh, definitely, yeah, yeah, I'm.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's good that I'm doing a podcast on structure, because I I'm a person that loves doing it as differently as they can, and breaking every rule and I had trouble when I was younger, just like ignoring the rules and trying to, and I'd say and, and I'd say to people who are young and inspired say like, don't do what I did, Like realize that it's just an aspect of it and you can draw from it. But I was just kind of like you will not define me. You will not put me in a box. I'm doing it my way, so yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you found your way and, and so where do you think was the moment when you started to take on to, to agree to those terms? I mean, we don't need to call them rules, we can just see them as guidelines around what is the norm and what can happen beyond that and what is necessary or not necessary. But how do I make sure that the reader can hear what I'm sharing?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what happened was the first work I was referring to that I self-published in 2010,. That book was written its original skeleton version in 2005, in two weeks and I was you know, I was manic, I'd say it was incredible, but it changed my writing style. It literally this thing just came through that uh, just was different to the way I'd written. But but people read it and went, wow, this is great, I love this, can you do more of this? And and then I reflected on it and I went, oh, this is written for the readers. It's got more sense of engagement and drive and action and pulling people in. So that was a huge thing.
Speaker 1:And then I started to…. Can I just ask quickly before you go on? So, was that a conscious intent to do that for the reader, or did it happen in the process? Or did you actually write down a structure?
Speaker 2:I did not write down a structure in in that instance, it just came through me. I didn't know who the characters were, where the story was going. I literally channeled it in inverted commas in a yeah, in quite a high state and yeah. So I didn't know. But it's a strange thing to say that when we're talking about structure. But it really did anchor structure for me because it was a well crafted story. People wanted to read it they enjoyed it and it also.
Speaker 2:It had spiritual themes that I'd wanted to present, but they were put in a way where it wasn't like preachy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, proselytizing yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I was like, and then I was like, then I was paying attention to structure, because I was like, wow, this thing just came out of me and I've got to do more of this. So then I was like, okay, what do people want, you know?
Speaker 1:then, yeah, focusing on all those things, yeah, because it sounds like, maybe subconsciously or whatever, it was working on, because you mentioned that with that first one you weren't so happy with the way it was received, so maybe there was even though you weren't consciously putting a structure there. So maybe there was. Even though you weren't consciously putting a structure there, you were just you had the reader there and that created the in your storytelling. It brought a kind of a structure, some structure, yeah definitely. This is for the. I'm doing this for the reader.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's right, maybe it came through from your heart rather than your head.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's right. Maybe it came through from your heart rather than your head. Yeah, it did, yeah for sure. So these days, what's?
Speaker 1:the dance between structure and inspiration, and rebel and conformist. Not that you'd ever be a conformist, I don't think, cj.
Speaker 2:Well, these days I'm actually questing for greater flow once again because the novel I was referring to earlier that I want to get published soon, um, I wrote that because I hadn't I was quite unwell in my life, um, with chronic fatigue, and I hadn't been able to write for so long and I literally kind of just almost forced that out like I just you, you know had a couple of days, a couple of hours a day, mostly for a year or however long it was, and I just got it out.
Speaker 2:But then last time I worked on that project, which is quite close to completion, I had a day. I was like I'm just going to see if I can capture some of that. You know, 20 something year old, just bang here it comes, it's coming through and I had a pretty amazing day.
Speaker 2:I had like, yeah, so I'm. Where I'm at is um, I'm finding that in other aspects of my life is that flow is returning and, wonderful, the inspiration starting to move. So I'm really wanting to have that amazing enjoyment of when it's really fresh and just coming out of the moment and it's potent and you can't stop doing it.
Speaker 1:And that was you when you were young. It's rediscovering that in this new way.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, so that's where my uh inspirations are in writing at the moment.
Speaker 1:Love it and can you give us a little bit of a teaser about this novel. That's, or is it, too soon for?
Speaker 2:no, definitely I'd love to, um it's. It's a very similar theme to Emerging from the Cave, in that it's about somebody discovering and bringing their multidimensional nature into the modern world. But this one's got a lot more of me in it. I think the main character is very different to me as a family person. I don't have kids. He's very strong and driven. I had energy problems, so there's nice difference. But he has um. He's a dedicated poet, has mental health issues, um, uh, circumstantially, not kind of innately, but it's about his actual connection to country. There's actually some, because that's what happened to me where I grew up. It was that the energies that had been embedded into the country by the Dja Dja Wurrung Indigenous people not just spoke to me, they kind of, they took me over at times they woke me up and so separate it's yeah, it's a story really about that.
Speaker 2:It's about a a linear. If you look at it linearly, it's a a modern family guy's journey to kind of juggle everything and be able to cope and bring their spiritual nature into their family life, all of that. But on another level it's actually this huge integration journey of this character being so touched by that Dja Dja Wurrung country and having totemic experiences and having awakening experiences and the way that that whole intensity of that Indigenous or First Nations energy gets embedded into his life. So it's a journey of integration in that regard and I'm really passionate about sharing it, particularly for, um, mental health reasons and, um, yeah, because, um, I'd love to be able to uh represent and present that um to to australian public.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and did you when you were going through that process yourself, because I understand that that's what you experienced in that environment. Uh, were you sharing it with other people, or is this your way of finally getting communicating that experience?
Speaker 2:I think it's. It's the way of finally communicating it because, yeah, I, I'm somebody who's gone very psychotic before. I've been hospitalized once, but for me it was. Not only am I in a space where I'm out of all of that you know the instability or the illness side of it but also even when it was happening. For me it was. There's so much gold in it and even my experience of being hospitalized. It was quite beautiful and quite graceful quiet, graceful.
Speaker 1:Maybe if you'd been born in a different dominant reality, you wouldn't have had the harsh side of that experience, your experience would have been honoured.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. Yeah, people who have been proofreading it for me and things they say, wow, this is like stirring and it's gritty in parts, because there's parts that, yeah, parts where the main character is hospitalized and there's experiences of psychosis, which are also these unions with the land so many things, yeah, and also navigating the relationship that's falling apart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot in there. So, bringing that back to the theme of the structure and narrative, did that bring out something new or did that present new challenges in the way you told the story?
Speaker 2:Yeah, in the way you told the story. Yeah, it was actually another one of those. It was a story that began with having a crazy idea and wanting to see if I could do it. So this idea was that the character would go all the way through the story, then get to the end and then have have a first nation's incarnation that would be at the end and then come back to meet it in the middle and then have a picture that would be the end of the story where the two timelines met.
Speaker 2:So, um, yeah, so I I structured it like that, but then one of my close friends and fellow writers said you just you can't do this. So I abandoned it and then made a compromise and I felt okay about it. But what this one taught me was then I did a rewrite at the end that took my craft and my skill to a whole new level, where I got to actually put the essence and the beauty I wanted to put in there in, but still in a way where the story went forward in a linear sense. But that's the conclusion of the story, so I don't want to spoil it, but it gets very multi-dimensional while still going straight.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it was, um, it was evolved me like that in this instance and even the initial thing that I wanted to see. If I could pull it off, I always thought the story would be like 15,000 words, 20,000 words long, which for readers that's like one-fifth, one-sixth of a novel, and now it's a novel. So there you go.
Speaker 1:What I'm hearing in what you just described is like a longer form version of the short story that's in volume two of voice within that, yeah it's got so many elements and you've found a way and so many realities that you've found a way to create this really clear structure that takes the reader on the journey. Does that sound like that might be close?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's the….
Speaker 1:I had a chance to. I can't wait for it to be published to read it.
Speaker 2:That's the feedback I'm getting. Yeah, and it's because it was written in that simple way. At the start I didn't have much energy, I was just trying to get it done. It actually the lack of energy created the structure because I had to write in such a simple way, and then what it's evolved into, like you said, is this kind of sharp clarity To the essence of it. Even though there's all this yeah, even though there's all this multidimensional stuff going, it's just very clear and direct and, yeah, wonderful, it's a pleasant surprise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, great. Well, well, we seem to have come to the end of our time, so do you want to wrap up with anything that you want to share with listeners today?
Speaker 2:just once again, if you are a writer of any age, or an aspiring writer, don't be afraid of structure um, but just remember that it's just an element of storytelling that you can resource yourself from with and through um. But yeah, just don't let but see it as a resource and just be foremostly willing to give yourself space and follow your inspiration. That's the most important thing that feeling and passion, to let that drive you.
Speaker 1:Thanks, cj, I'm taking that home with me. Yeah thanks for being here today.
Speaker 2:Thanks Leigh.
