World as Ecstasy: August 2023
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World as Ecstasy: August 2023
What I've been up to and thoughts on living as a creative
What I’m Working On
I’m working on getting back to work, that’s what. After taking a month off to travel and enjoy time with family, I’ve published the paperback version of my novel, The Beautiful World of the Alive.
With that out of the way, I plan on beginning the editing on Athena, the second half of the series The Desert Road of Night, sometime in September, with no release date in mind.
I spent considerable time during my vacation thinking about the inciting incident in Athena, and whether it not only fits with the overall narrative of the series but also falls in line with this wonderful piece of writing advice from Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
Basically, the advice calls for the writer to take the beats of their outline, and if the words “and then” belong between the beats, then, in the words of Trey Parker, “they’re fucked.” What should happen is that between every beat written down, there should be the words “therefore” or “but.”
The advice was crucial in editing the first half of the series, and according to my beta readers, it was crucial in bringing a clear focus to the narrative. It helped me better understand my character’s motivations (which any novelist will tell you are revealed only through the writing of the story), which in turn ensured that as the story progressed, the stakes were raised, leading to an ending that when I first began writing the draft I had not anticipated. It was only made possible by looking at those beats and removing anything that had, in the between, “and then.”
When I begin editing on Athena, it will be on a completed draft that I have not looked at since 2021, and I am dreading the amount of “and thens” I will be coming across. I will need another vacation, especially since the whole point of the second half of the series is to turn every idea presented in the first half upside down.
Some of those ideas are ones that, over the years, I’ve watched on social media the most anti-seductive people around—people who are not having sex—people who have no “game”—give their opinions on, and part of the reason for writing this series is to counter them and say, “It’s not that simple.”
What are those ideas?
Buy my book and find out.
I’m currently working on a draft for a post that touches on one of the ideas presented in my novel, with the tentative name, Don’t Be Poor.
Stay tuned for that.
What I’ve Loved Lately
Books
A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter is one of those books that I discovered when I was in my early twenties that, after all those years, where I’m in my fifties, still blows me away with its sensuality.
Here’s the following description from Goodreads:
As nearly perfect as any American fiction I know," is how Reynolds Price (The New York Times) described this classic that has been a favorite of readers, both here and in Europe, for almost forty years. Set in provincial France in the 1960s, it is the intensely carnal story—part shocking reality, part feverish dream —of a love affair between a footloose Yale dropout and a young French girl. There is the seen and the unseen—and pages that burn bright with a rare intensity.
I have to admit I picked this book partly because it would give me an opportunity to clown on the people who post reviews like this on Goodreads:
It was my girlfriend back then who gave me my first copy of this novel, saying, “The way he writes is fucking hot.”
It sure is. It’s one of the reasons why I decided to reread it. James Salter has a way of writing prose that, in its choppiness, pulls the reader into a world where, even in the opening paragraphs of the narrator's ride on the train out of Paris, somehow becomes a sensual experience. It’s a style and approach to story telling that I will be taking into account in the editing of the second half of my novel series, thus my rereading it as a refresher in how to create sensual scenes.
Give A Sport and a Pastime a read.
Music
I’ve been playing Just When I Needed You (Joe Claussel-Sacred Dub) by Santessa on loop since going on vacation. It’s one of those songs that, just like what A Sport and a Pastime makes you feel through the prose, this track makes you feel in the music: a lightness to being. So much so that I am planning on taking some time to create a DJ set with this track as its centerpiece. The last time I felt like this, I created this DJ set, inspired by the movie Before Sunrise with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, called Desire.
Take a listen.
News and Updates
Music
If you love listening to DJ podcasts, I have two produced under my stage name, Karma of Dove, that I invite you to check out.
Three AM Deep
A monthly mixtape-style set devoted to underground techno, house, and nu-disco sounds loved by die-hards who are still on the dance floor at 3 a.m., while others are starting to make their way home.
World as Ecstasy
A monthly mixtape-style set devoted to world music and indie dance sounds made popular by the Buddha Bar series.
My main social media profile for music can be found at soundcloud.com/karmaofdove.
Photography
My main portfolio can be found at https://vemares.co/austin-boudoir/.
I continue to have an Instagram profile devoted to my photography, which remains under my real name. That can be found on my website.
Writing
For now, my novels and books of poetry are available through Amazon. Click here to see my current catalog.
Follow the Instagram profile devoted to my author platform at instagram.com/viktor.e.mares/.