\u201cLittle Paper Boats\u201d was a big hit with my classmates. Leaving class after having my piece reviewed by my peers, I was beaming with optimism and the most satisfaction I’d ever felt with any assignment or project I had done up to that point. I had some of my classmates emailing me after, asking where I learned to write how I do. My family loved it as well, especially my grandmother. My dad is a painter and he sometimes paints pictures as gifts for my grandma. I\u2019d always wished that I could someday do the same with my writing, and I finally could. It was a nice feeling. I felt as though I had the undeniable proof of my skill that I had been looking for. I felt validated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then came the inevitable question, \u201cWhat next?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t know. I no longer had a deadline stalking me as I wrote, propelling me forward. I tried time and again to get something \u2014 anything \u2014 going. But I never could make it past the first paragraph. I\u2019d go and sit in my writing corner of the Main Library, hoping that there was something left from whatever cloud of creativity that I had been pulling from for my last piece, but still nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventually, this bout of writer\u2019s block turned into ennui, and the ennui turned to insecurity. Somehow I had managed to refute all the evidence that I had gained as to my writing ability, and found myself in want of more proof. A year after taking my first, I enrolled for a second round of creative writing. This time it was Advanced Creative Writing (ENGL4800W), which intimidated me. Maybe I was good enough to get through an intro class, but I just knew the advanced course would swallow me whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This time around, I wanted to try my hand at fiction again. I still wasn\u2019t all that confident in my ability to think up a compelling narrative, so I decided that imitation might assuage my insecurities. I had just read John Gardener\u2019s \u201cGrendel,\u201d so I elected it as my story template. I sat with the \u201cGrendel\u201d arc for a bit, tweaking it and personalizing it until I had come up with something that I felt was original enough to call my own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As for the style, I decided to channel Faulkner. I had read \u201cAbsalom, Absalom\u201d the previous summer and the writing contained within it had stuck with me long after I had finished the book. I had already flirted with stream of consciousness \u2014 namely, the final section of \u201cLittle Paper Boats\u201d \u2014 but I had not fully embraced it, so I decided to continue building what I had previously started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I also had an odd fixation on crumbling architecture at the time. I had just picked up urban exploration as a hobby. I was exploring a lot of places around the time I wrote this: an abandoned factory, an abandoned prison and hotel. As it happens, I’ve written a memoir about my trip to the abandoned hotel which I feel would make a good introduction to the themes of Green Vein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n