Incompatible

A Ruby Tuesday Epiphany

One of the things I like most about yurt-living is the oculus. And I could say a lot of smart stuff about how the Sun card is connected to this post, but I won’t. Yes, this is my back. A shaman fool philosopher.

Almost four months in.

This morning I published the last chapter of part one of TCOTNK. A total of forty posts and more than four-thousand reads. A good organic growth of subscribers from the initial four to ninety-six. A fabulous four away from my first Substack milestone. Which may not sound like much but are mostly active readers that signed up by choice. Real people like you.

Do I want to become famous? Hell no. I do always write with ‘the reader’ in mind. For an audience. That audience was as fictitious as the content of my writing for a long time. I was my own worst reader. And I was my best reader.¹

Only recently I have gotten a glimpse of the insanity of writing. I have spent the last forty years or so scribbling. A few hours a week when busy with other pursuits and up to sixty hours every single week when in story-mode. That’s crazy. I can still hear my dad judging the time wasted. Using the dutch term that translates into ‘airbiking’. 

Like many of us kids I blamed him for a while. For what? For being incompatible. For burdening me with his autistic tendencies. But I mostly punished myself. 

I am a stubborn child. Yes, I identify more with Charlotte than with Michael. (If you have no idea who these two are then something’s off, go read TCOTNK, there’s my actual writing). I was headstrong and wanted to find out for myself. I didn’t —and still don’t— accept the usual answers.

Nobody told me who to read. Or I didn’t listen. I was on my own. What I did read did not match my experience. I didn’t care about literature or art, or poetry. That came way later. I tried to find me and didn’t succeed. I found shards, bits and pieces. I did stuff. I tried lots. But the jigsaw piece called me, never fitted in place. 

I wasn’t stupid. I saw other people cheat. Adjust their shape by cutting, shaving, glueing, dressing, faking it. That kind of winning looked like loosing to me. 

Still, I did not find what I was looking for. 

I have been a good drummer, but never felt a real musician among musicians. And I could give you a long list of occupations in which I can function fine but that do not fit me back. 

I was incompatible. When I realised that, I moved on. To the next fascination. Trying to work my way in. And I do not try half heartedly. 

It took me twenty years to accept I am not an entrepreneur. I did well, like I do lots of things pretty okay. But it wasn’t me. It nibbled at my soul. It ate me from the inside. I had to get out. Again. 

In the last few weeks I have read a memoir². It pierced my heart. Her story is nothing like mine. But it did make me look back and see my own ‘story’ more clearly. 

I create worlds in my writing. I try to find out how. I make lists, invent ways, jot down recipes, write what I would want to read, sketch myself a way through. I project big time but I do not journal. I hardly ever wrote about me. 

Except that it is me. All of it. All the eighty or so characters in the epic now being rolled out are me. Every situation is a reflection of my experience. I don’t write literature. I write my world. I write the world I seek and cannot seem to find. I write the many me’s lingering on my inner porch. 

My books are my bloody imaginary friends, it is my fucking fantasy world.

Insane. 

I took the long way home. Not a single cell in my body doubts that fact. I have climbed mountains, ran though fields, I have crawled. Scaled city walls. I have kissed and felt healing fingertips, the tongue of angels and flirted with the devil, negotiating the price, but yes I’m still running. 

Language. I burn it to stay warm. 

Without writing I would have lost my way. My sanity is kept by scratching phrases into my papery skin. Making me feel what I need to feel. They provide the building material to tinker me a safe place. A nest made of crap and nine inch words. 

And that incompatibility needs more words. It has many layers. Because slowly and surely I find evidence and very real arguments that it is not me that is the misfit. I am not at the wrong end. And I am far from alone in being a maverick. By now my feet have found solid ground. My hands know where their strength lies. And now I can speak up. In my own skin. 

Writing helps me to make sense, to understand. To know the world I am born into. I make love to the place with sound that makes no sound. I tell what I cannot say out loud. I make visible what I am unable to paint. I make real what I do not encounter. I undo what cannot be undone. Word by word I become me. And I am supported by the depth of generations. My surroundings fit me like a second skin, no matter where I find myself. Until this story ends with a full stop. 

Thank you for reading me. 

But I’m not done yet. Not even close. With reading that same memoir another realisation came online. Looking back at the crazy amount of words in my ‘backcatalogue’ I wondered about my craft. Do I even write novels? 

I have so many unfinished projects. Not just open ended narratives, also building projects, paintings and a warehouse worthy pile of potentials waiting to be called for duty. 

I did finish several novels. Only to start a sequel pretty soon after. And I shouldn’t yet tell you, but TCOTNK is a big project. It is loooooong³. 

I don’t think it is a novel at all. Or even a trilogy. It is, and that’s the epiphany, a tv-series. Several seasons of intensifying episodes. Something fell in place when this hit home. 

Publishing a weekly chapter is not just an excuse to pre-publish a printed book. It is a way to go semi-live. To get as close to ‘my audience’ as possible. To up the risk and the tingle, to be now with my songwriting. And it opened my archive. My what the hell can I do with the few million words in my story attic? I can recycle the best bits. The worlds created have woken up. And now the dusty attic has come alive with older voices reborn. Actors and props forgotten. Storyboards raring to go. 

This changes my strategy. My attitude. You see, the first fifteen chapters are season one. And season two is lined up. I will up the pace. You can expect longer episodes, deeper immersion. I have removed the paywall to make it as easy as possible to catch this ride. 

The big advantage of writing, as opposed to a filmed production, is having an unlimited budget. I do not have to score. No investor will ever cancel next season. I can afford to take it slow. I can up the scale to unseen proportions. I can hire and sack as many extras as I need for a single scene. I can afford  a three sentence paragraph that would cost an Elonian fortune. And not hurt a fly. 

The slow and humble beginnings of my little big story are not by accident. The first chapter is not called circle breaker because it sounds good. By season four you will wonder what else you have missed in those first rather quiet chapters. I missed many of the signs writing it. 

This is a strange story. I do not know any book like this. And I am deeply aware this is a problem. This is a slow burn. The fireworks come later. The bigger crowds will gather further down the line. I cannot give you any credentials, nor a two line elevator pitch. There is no genre. This is a one off. Can I promise anything? 

I can tell you it made me laugh, it made me cry. This story moved me. It brought me to a new place. How’s that for a promise? A new place. 

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This is a big project. Just as I like it. While I am a notorious do it all myself and on my own with nobody telling me how or what or when I have learned to ask for help too. Like an inverted production. A widening while it evolves. I have asked several ‘voices’ to become part of season six. Writers, activists, musicians, designers. 

• I am looking for proof readers for season three now. Catching typos, weird translations, unclear scenes. (bertus@substack.com or simply reply to the email)

• You becoming a paid subscriber really makes a difference. It buys me time and fills the fridge with edibles. It is a radical way to pay an artist for what they do.

• Spreading the word. I am deeply grateful for every single one of you reading my work. And I do not wish large numbers. I do see a bigger crowd makes for a more exuberant celebration. And it simply pays the bills. So share if you feel like it. And enjoy the intimacy while it lasts.

1. In recent years the best and worst reader task is fulfilled by my lifetime love. I fear her….

2.

Kimberly Warner

wrote this very moving memoir….you can find it here

3. Notice the six circles in the word. It’s a clue to how my mind works….