English Education

Keeping Time - Pavo

I guess that working on Keeping Time started when I transitioned from one school to another. I recently came out of a relationship with two narcissistic / abusive individuals. I thought very hard that my reason for being abused had something to do with a Bipolar diagnosis.

That semester I started school was the 2016 election - which those in America will now remember as being possibly one of, if not the most, politically polarized elections of all time. Getting adjusted from a rural to urban environment during the election was a cultural adjustment in and of itself.

My ex used to terrorize me through Yik Yak and Whisper - making me a target at the time for rumors and possible violence. These websites are used as a way of shaming women. They, along with YouTube, began to be the hosting platform of the MGTOW / Antifeminist movement - which begun to be the breeding ground for some of the "issues" that would eventually lead to Donald Trump being elected.

Being angry and traumatized by my own experiences, I begun to see these "movements" as a way of justifying violence and mistreatment of women. I suppose that I needed to write back against this, but felt stuck. Writing back would be a way of overcoming this trauma.

I needed to reclaim the "craziness" that had been assigned to me. In my second semester at Georgia State, I learned through studying Composition of rhetorical sovereignty being something that can be reclaimed. I read Margaret Price's Mad at School and ran with it - understanding the need for a rhetorical sovereignty by the mentally disabled and mentally ill. I wanted to gain sovereignty over my experiences of being mentally ill - if I didn't I would never learn anything. This is where the writing started on ThoughtCatalog, Quora, and Wordpress - which would eventually be compiled in Pavo. I gained such a popularity from Quora, and grew so much as a writer both within and outside of school, that I continued with it. Studying the way that other people spoke on these issues and acknowledging the facts about psychology and psychiatry helped me to learn the lingo, and to share my story through the understanding.

While I'm working on "reclaiming illness," I begun reading literature about Borderline Personality Disorder, about tragic women, and modern women. I read Anna Karenina - which was very lenient to the struggles that women face. Madame Bovary was similar but different - it depicted a personality disorder as something indulged in due to personality, and something that destroys everything around it. I hated Madame Bovary, and loved Anna Karenina.

I also begun to l read Marian Keyes. I think she is what begun the growth in my writing - understanding that a stream of consciousness can be allowed. Keyes uses broken characters and finds a way to redeem every one of them. Some of the books I recommend are: This Charming Man, Rachel's Holiday, Watermelon, and Last Chance Saloon. I learned from her that I can also use dysfunctional characters - that they are actually more interesting, and are of cathartic use for the writer as well as the reader.

Emily Giffin is an Atlanta writer I found through my sister. It was through her that I understood the dark side of women's literature. Whether it be Something Blue, Love the One You're With, or Heart of the Matter - there's something to talk about. Often there's some character flaw to these women that lead to their husbands cheating on them. It's worth it's own weight in discussion, but of course it shows the dark side of the female psych, and can be somewhat unpleasant to read.

This is how Keeping Time came about: it took The Vampire Queen as someone who used to be an exemplar in society - to making her someone who turns into rejecting society. It takes The Time Queen as a survivor of Schizophrenia- making her someone who ends up lifting the veil of space-time, saving her society, and becoming a leader who sees the function in maintaining and saving the human race.

There were some other factors. I had Adam, Kadmon, and Maoko on my head for a long time. I knew I needed to explore the idea of "the other woman" so that Lux could learn more about Adam and herself. This was also the function for the developing romance that budded into realization between Myst and Francia.

When I finished Keeping Time - there was a feeling of anger leaving my system. The rest was in the realization - the love of my life was leaving me for someone else. She is exotic, more popular, and more likable. He no longer saw the value in me, why? The nature of my experiences, what I thought was bringing me back to him, was the same experiences that drew me away. I realized that I had to analyze once more - the feeling of being crazy, the feeling of being ignored. These were the feelings that led to the completion of Pavo.