The Real World Book Project: An experiment in fiction

Many years ago I found I had the desire to write. I think at the time I was five or six. Since that time I have always had a strong desire to write both fiction and non-fiction. I have fond memories of writing short stories at school and picking up novels to read at an early age. Now that I am in my 30’s I find I still have the same desire. So what’s the problem?

The problem is the stuff I write never seems to do any good. Now, I have heard the full argument over the last few years. I have heard that sayings like, ‘you just aren’t good enough to be published,’ or ‘nobody will buy it.’ So, what of this desire then? This singular, agonising desire that has plagued me since I was small child. What of that? Am I supposed to take that and throw it into the rubbish and become something else. I did NOT asked to be born with a desire to tell stories. This is just how I am.

After 350 plus rejections on my second novel, the subject of this very website, I decided that I was not going to be a writer anymore. I knuckled down and began working in the academic industry as a lecturer. After two years of not writing a damned thing, I got a PhD in problem solving. Yet, in all of that I still really only wanted one thing. To write and tell stories. You can try to hide from who you really are or you can embrace it. I may not be the next Stephen King and yes my writing may suck more than a time space vacuum (you see my point) but I still have to write. As sure as the sun is a giant ball of yellowness, steadily burning a hole in the ozone layer, I have to write.

So here, whoever reads this, is my point. A writer needs to write like a gardener needs to garden. I wrote the Real World: Genesis Part 1 of a 8 part planned series, because it was on my heart to do it. I can’t tell you why I wrote the awful unpublishable mess I did prior to that, but I can say this: I wrote it because I felt the desire to do it. So almost three years after I finished this book I decided, after much praying, weeping and screaming that I have to write. I sat down to look at this manuscript and thought to myself what can I do with this to make it work. I have tried lots of things so far.

I tried to sell it as a serialised novel. Didn’t work. I tried to sell it as an e-book through email marketing. Didn’t work. I tried selling it to agents, publishers and God knows I even tried to sell it on E-Bay. Didn’t work. None of it worked. Nobody was interested, nobody invested in it and nobody, not even over 350 agents or publishing editors thought it was worthwhile. I am plagued with self-doubt as a result. But, I still want to write. I can’t help but want to write. If I could take a tablet to stop this wretchedness I would take ten pills, mince them up with some scotch and drown away my sorrows. Alas, for some reason that only God seems to know, I have to write. Perhaps it’s a mental disorder. Perhaps I was born with some key brain cells missing? I cannot say.

The story is simple enough. A young girl, a diagnosed schizophrenic, begins to see things moving through her inner-city apartment in Brisbane. Yes I have the ‘added’ bonus of being from Australia. She realises pretty soon into the story that the world she is surrounded with, is not the world she thought it to be. The world she has entered is all-encompassing structure of spirits, demons, angels and strange men with devices that are battling for possession of earth.

That’s it. It’s not Hemmingway, it’s not Dickens it’s a story. And it’s now on the web. Why? Because I don’t know what else to do with it that’s why! The book is here for everyone to read.

The project aims

This is not like an ordinary web/novel experience. I am putting a lot of effort into getting this thing up and running. Quite possibly this may be the first novel on the web that actually uses the web as it was intended. A giant cross-referenced mass of human consciousness. Each part of the book is now assimilated into the thought processes of the web. I am using different parts of the web, different concepts, ideas and free open source stuff to make this work. It’s an experiment. Instead of writing 8 long novels, I intend to use this blog template to create a long novel that is delivered parts and is (fingers crossed people) media rich.

This is the ultimate in web experience. Sight, sound and words meshing together to form a moosh of something that I wrote during a period of extreme burnout in 2005. Moosh, that’s fantastic and moosh that I am proud of. I plan to post a new part of the book everyday on the one hand while I continue to flesh out the ideas for the development of the rest of it on the other.

What’s in it for me?

You can make comments, make suggestions, use the content in your work, share it, burn it and remix it if you like. I am using a creative commons attribution license. My only request is that if you wish to use the work for commercial purposes talk to me about it first.

Why are you doing this?

If I don’t write and keep the creative part of my life alive I will die. It’s part of me, and you know it’s part of you too… at least in some small way.

So sit back relax, open up a bottle of your favourite wine and enter the real world.