I first conceived the idea of writing in the summer of 2010/11. It was some time after I had graduated from primary school, but before beginning high school. I was twelve, and to this day I don't understand why I felt such a desire.
Now it is almost the summer of 2022/23, a whole twelve years later. I went through high school, university, a year of nothing, a year back at university, and now this most strange year, and at last I can say what I have been building towards all this time; I am a published author.
Words have power, and the power in these words is one I feel, but do not understand, nor know how to explain. Howard Roark, Architect. Those are the words which appear in The Fountainhead, a book I happen to be reading at this time. When Roark arrives at his office and sees those words inscribed on his door, he pauses. There is a power in those words. Thomas Maine, published writer.
When I was in primary school, I dreamt of becoming a lawyer. The arts were a field I took no interest in, be it painting or sewing or indeed, writing. Perhaps it was there, somewhere. Perhaps I have forgotten. I do not remember what happened that summer. I recall a beach. It was on the Mornington Peninsula. It was dusk, or close to it. That is the first memory I have of wanting to be a writer. It was in the lead up to new years, maybe a few days before.
As I look back now, it is almost as if god had decided I was on the wrong path and gave me this new one, although I am not so egotistical to believe I am of near enough importance to warrant intervention by the divine. Or perhaps it was a punishment.
You see, that year was the year I started to lose my faith, and even if it wasn't until the year after the next that I adopted the label 'atheist', there was a budding feeling in my final year of primary school. As for today, such a label may no longer stick, but a punishment set during that time would have no obligation to change with the acquiring of faith.
As to why it is a punishment to be enraptured by such a pursuit, it is because it is impossible. Let's say I am lucky, and my books become a success. Let's say they make me money, enough to pay back the debts I incurred during publication, and then provide for my life. It would still not be enough. I have been gripped by a frenzy of this adoring love for worlds I cannot hold, touch, or share. My books are a medium, my attempt to show you what I can see. But it's never perfect, it's never right. For every piece I manage to convey, there are far more left behind. And worse, what I share is not right. It is tainted by me, the hand that writes it down, diluting the rawness of the world I saw. That knowledge, that what I want - to allow others to know, see, and witness these stories as I understand them, untainted by my imperfect medium - is impossible to ever achieve. I am not capable of success, while success means sharing with you the world I see. Twisting it, forcing it, perverting it into text, bridging it into a narrative for you to bare witness, is a travesty inflicted upon my soul.
But I cannot turn back, burn the pages and hide them. They are mangled, distorted, and wrong, but these pages are the only way you will ever see that world. My inability to preserve it, my ultimatum of giving up on sharing the wonders I see or delivering it broken, is a punishment I could never concoct to harass my greatest foe.
Twelve years I have worked on this book, and now that it is out, now that people can touch it, I want to hold it back. This character isn't right, this scene is incorrect. I withheld this trait because I thought it was inconvenient to the story. I have delivered a work by me, when I want no part of it. I did not spend all this time for you to see the work of me, I did it to share the world I have seen. And now you will see only a broken sentiment of it.
In The Fountainhead, there is a moment when one character describes the sacrilege of building a certain house, for it is an affront to allow something so beautiful to be tainted by human degeneracy. My words translate what I have seen, and you will interpret these words to make an image in your mind. Great. As a writer, I take no issue in your own interpretations, in the disparity between what I imagined and what you take from it. I adore the process, the magic, or such interaction. It is what any good writer should strive for. But I am not a writer, I am a translator. And as a translator, it is the greatest shame to fail to communicate the ideas of which I was tasked to transcribe. This idea I have never understood until right now.
How should I feel now, now that I am published? Should I be happy? Should I feel justified in my actions? Should I feel that my many efforts have now born fruit? Or should I feel like the depraved monster presenting you with a mangled corpse? My answer is only that I do not know.
I did not set out to write this. When I started this post, I thought I would discuss the issues I had in this last day. With shipment dates having problems, with books not yet being posted, with the failure by myself to promote in the years leading up to this (twelve years is a long time to have gotten the word out), this is what I had intended to discuss. Instead, I wrote this piece, and I know not why. Perhaps it is my commitment to truth, perhaps this is all part of my attornment, that I must write this down and express these thoughts, making them real, tangible, something I must feel. It was through writing this that I now understand the words I wish I could see imprinted, and know I never will have. Perhaps I have simply been alone for too long of a time, and none of it means anything. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
There is only one thing that is not perhaps.
I will never see the words "Thomas, Translator." Instead, I must content with something that feels at times like a blessing so great nothing could overtake it, and at others like a shame so great I would hide it from even the devil.
Thomas, Writer.
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