They Serve Towers — Concept

Always following a period of stress, or at the very least increased emotional “activity”, comes a lull in my ability to write anything. A pattern I should have noticed much earlier, only apparent to me now, how silly. I’m in that now, it’s been a week since I uploaded last and I haven’t written anything. I want to, but I can’t do it. And now when these periods of writer’s block come along they worry me little, because in the last couple years I’ve hit them so many times only to inevitably stride forward and return to a healthy and productive state. For now however, though I have the idea in my mind for several potential posts, there is this force preventing me from doing what I do when I do manage to do it. Bringing them to life, making an idea real.

I realised, while wondering to myself about why I so often hit a wall like this one I face now — such reflection is what led me to the realisation I initiated this blog entry with — that the blog ironically functions as a wall itself when it is going well, and I am in my most fruitful state. See for a while now I’ve had the germ of an idea for something, a written work of some kind that would go beyond this blog. Not to say it’d necessarily exist beyond this blog, I’ve toyed with the idea of integrating the idea into the blog completely. I’d probably publish any writing towards this idea here even if I wanted the two projects to be seen as separate, though I doubt they could be truly, being the product of me there would be bleed-over. It’s a tiny platform, I have a handful of regular readers, but it’s preferable to attempting to get eyes on something from scratch all over again.

I’m not sure exactly what it would look like if I ever found the time or energy or motivation or clarity to actually start writing towards this thing, whatever it’s final form would take, it’s still a very rudimentary concept. I’ve decided today however, that despite that I’m not gonna hold on to this anymore. For lack of anything else to share or write about, and because frankly I feel like I may never do anything with what I think is at the very least an interesting idea, I’ll give a quick rundown today. So it’s out there, the potential anyway, and not completely lost with me. Not to hype things up so much, ultimately it’s a very simple idea, a short story or collection of stories — I’m undecided. I’ve said before I have a lot of ideas that pop into my head, artistic concepts, but very few stick with me like this one has. So, without further ado, They Serve Towers.

Ultimately, I see this blog as a way of understanding myself and my thoughts better, and I do that primarily through non-fictional means. I talk about my feelings, my thoughts on the world, etc. I talk about how works of fiction by others have influenced me, of course, but primarily the blog is me attempting to understand myself by presenting myself as sincerely as I can. So, some time ago I was thinking to myself if a similar kind of thing could work in fiction. Because while this blog has been very helpful for me, and will continue to be I hope, it is limited in ways. As I’ve talked about on here in fact, while like all people I am multi-faceted, I do tend to lean into some aspects of my personality more heavily than others when writing. A reader who met me might find me to be much less gloomy or prone to melancholy than they expected, which isn’t to say I’m not those things, but it’s not the person I am with most people most of the time. It’s something that’s impossible to avoid, the very nature of this blog as a thing for self reflection means it has to take on quite an introspective and somewhat sad tone.

So there was this idea, that through fiction I could more closely examine all aspects of who I think I might be. So, inspired to a degree by Pessoa and his heteronyms, I would take these personality tendencies which each have their own place in life where they express themselves more loudly over the others, and make unique characters out of them. My melancholy or angsty side which tends to hold sway in this blog; the naïve/ innocent little prince role, which I tend to lean into more when around my co-workers and other people I don’t know so well; the more angry or edgy person I might come across as if you read my posts on 4chan; and the genuinely happy and content individual who laughs at everything that my close friends seem to see me as. There could be more or less, I’ve thought about it a bit but am undecided, but the core of whatever this project could end up being are these characters which are ultimately aspects of myself made whole.

Through this framework, I think there’d be a lot of opportunity to explore how and why I make certain decisions the way I do by looking at which characters most naturally seem to take the lead in various different scenarios I could hypothetically put them in. There’s opportunity for interaction between these characters of course, and perhaps I’d find in time which of them I like or appreciate most and which I have the opposite response to, if I do. Through this I might better understand what I like and dislike about myself, if I want to be any different or if I should be more comfortable with who I am, that sort of thing. I hope as well, that others reading could gain something from such exploration, I’d be drawing on my own experience and person of course, but if it inspires others to think about themselves in a similar way that’d be nice I think.

Speaking of scenarios, I have a few in mind, I think I’d primarily draw on events which have happened to me at work. I’ve met many different kinds of people since starting my job, and had quite a few unusual interactions which could be spun into something much more interesting in a work of fiction. I would want to write fiction, and I have a bit of an imagination so naturally things would get. . . weird. Dreamlike I guess, I’m interested in magical realism as an idea, fiction which has elements which would seem magical or real to any reader that are seen as normal by the characters. The setting of a workplace similar to mine — in certain ways, though rather different in others naturally — provides a very easy means of introducing various other one off characters and asides which would be useful for exploring what I wish to explore with this potential story/ies idea.

Another reason for the shop setting, is that it shows up in my dreams a lot (not so much lately) and I would heavily draw on my dreams for this thing. One dream in particular actually, which is what took my idea from something very barebones and gave it something of a body. In this dream, which I had months ago now, I was working at a shop somewhat like mine. Except, it was on top of this skyscraper in the middle of a bustling city centre. Aesthetically, think Manhattan or the city from the videogame Mirror’s Edge. The tower I was on specifically started from one base, but split into four smaller towers or peaks about two thirds of the way up. So, there was like a narrow cross in the centre where one could potentially fall to their death. I was stationed at something a bit more like a market stall than what I work at irl, made of wooded planks, and on the other three towers were three other stalls. Hence the title, which came to me when I woke up instantly.

I don’t actually remember the specifics of the dream too well, I know I went to visit one of the other stalls and hung out with the guy there. It was actually one of co-workers, of course, when I was spending a lot of time around them they were showing up in my dreams frequently. One of the stalls was more like a bar, made of bamboo, with a huge glass bowl full of Caribbean punch. It was daylight at first, then later it got dark and me and my co-worker were sitting on the edge looking out over the city trying to hit the tower in front of us with pebbles, it was on the other side of a narrow street, as the day came to an end and the customers stopped showing up. I’m not even sure who the customers were, the were mostly just empty skins in suits, probably working in the building below us. It doesn’t matter too much, because I’d change a fair bit for the final work I think, this was just a major inspiration. The imagery of it, it was striking.

This was a short post, sorry, and it’s been longer than usual since I last uploaded. Mental block, like I said. I think I might be going back to work soon, hopefully before the end of the month, it’s been a weird period for me. I’m just losing track of reality a bit, some stuff happened as I’ve written about, and now I’m experiencing a new kind of weird. I’m having a lot less alone time, with this server that I’ve joined it’s like there’s always someone to talk to. And, I can’t help but be drawn into conversation, so starved of it as I have been for so many years. Resisting that, ignoring it and focusing on writing, it’s a new challenge. I’ve also hit a bit of a block regarding my reading progress as well, I was doing so well early during the quarantine but I’ve been stuck struggling to stay motivated with Gravity’s Rainbow for almost a month now. First world problems at least. Thanks for reading.