Being a writer means having to be honest with yourself about certain things at certain points. At least enough to get them down on paper during the act of writing. Those certain things and points may vary from writer to writer, of course. But there is always that root connection to some kind of ground truth, or honesty… or at least openness to realization (however temporary) that fuels the whole enterprise of being a writer.
One of those ground truths I’ve managed to ascertain in my time at the grindstone of two-bit writerdom is that not everybody likes my stuff. Shocker, I know.
I would go so far as to say most people won’t, for example, like my book, if they ever manage to somehow even see it in the first place. It is weird and obtuse and niche and very much an experiment and a personal project. Plus it’s written in a weird style about mythological things and other bullshit that only a few small group of weirdos seem to care about. It means a lot to me, personally, but other peoples’ mileage may vary. A lot.
Just as there are many different paths to Quatria, there are vastly more paths leading away from it. Which is just as well, probably. For the Lost Books of Quatria that can be written are not the true Lost Books of Quatria. Those are lost forever.
That all said (whatever that is), I tend to believe that creators who tap into the deeply personal, if they stick with it long enough and sincerely enough, they will break through to the universal. I’m in a bad position to objectively judge whether I’ve accomplished such a feat as that in the eyes of others. That’s up to them. I’ve done it for myself though, and maybe a handful of others (if I’m lucky, and they weren’t just being nice). The book for me has opened up a new way of being in this world AND in the otherworld at the same time. It’s transformed my definition of reality, and transcended my own experiences. I can’t tell in a way what it is or even what the overall shape is or will be or should be. I can only follow the way, and document my own passage to get back to that place, that lost land of legend. Quatria.
Tim B.
Good related read by Cory Doctorow:
https://doctorow.medium.com/self-publishing-41800468bcfe
“Put simply, you need to figure out why anyone, anywhere should give a shit that you wrote a book. This is a very hard problem. Indeed, it’s the hard problem of religion, advertising and politics: getting someone else to care about something you want them to care about.”