Writing the Velvet Port of Asquith novels and Wrong Books provides an opportunity to sup from the rich palette of human experience without much likelihood that I’ll get my jumper dirty. Here are three reasons why I do so.
1. "Domesticus" refers to our tendency to overlook the beauty and significance of our everyday lives because of familiarity. Despite there being millions of people yearning for the security and st
ability we take for granted, such routine can still become mundane. Writing the Velvet Port of Asquith novels, even if it's just a paragraph each day, allows immersion into a vibrant and extraordinary world that cannot even spell "domesticus." The eccentricity and absurdism remind me that there is far more to life than any routine that dulls it, and it affords a deliverance that rejuvenates perspective in a manner that I hope the books provide for others.
2. A requirement of any aspiring New Fabulist is polyauthoric creativity, which involves additional expression in mediums to help convey the books' story world, particularly through music and digital artwork. After the books themselves, polyauthorism has become the defining characteristic of the New Fable genre. This production of additional media not only helps readers better understand a book’s intended message but also contributes to my own creative satisfaction. Writing a book and allowing readers to interpret it in their own way is one thing, but providing something of a director's cut provides additional dimensions to the reader's experience while also stretching my own creativity. Diverse artistic expression not only enhances my immersion within the world of the Velvet Paws but also allows it to be experienced through altered perspectives of different media.
3. Writing both the Dooven Books and the Wrong Books affords the sort of therapeutic experience that money was originally invented for. Both series delve into the extremes of societal convention, enabling their perception from a remarkably skewed perspective that reveals insights I wasn't previously aware of. For example, I've learned that courage only arrives when we're too terrified to realise it has done so. In the Wrong Books, I'm stripped of the few redeeming features I have to become little more than a bleeding skeleton of inadequacy and social ineptitude. Exploring how such vulnerability interacts with the world at large highlights both our own flaws and the flaws of our social environments. Writing provides a unique opportunity to see through unfamiliar eyes and reveal hidden truths that would otherwise go unnoticed. And contrary to the adage that we can only write about what we know, it has taught me that true self-awareness emerges only when we try writing about what we do not.