This drew me in. I'm gonna go back to the start. You've definitely got something here with the narrator. Comes across very sharply and realistic and compelling.
Hey, I enjoyed this. It felt very real to me. It was brutally honest storytelling. I must admit a couple of times I was shocked by its explicitness yet very intrigued by where the story is going as well as Alex's thoughts about race and difference. “and a breeze pushes through the apartment like a slow school of fish.” beautiful. I love similes and I can just see it.
I am very curious to know more about his mind. What are the voices and what are him? So will read more.
Thank you, I’m touched. This book was terrifying to write and put out into the world for many reasons. It’s always heartening to get a positive response.
A beta reader suggested I cut the “school of fish” line. I’m glad I didn’t, because I like it too.
About Alex’s mind and the voices: I’ll see you in the next chapter! Thanks for reading, Janice.
I haven't, but now I'm really curious to check him out! Thanks for the rec!
I'd avoided writing about sex until this book, so this was a real discovery for me. If anything made it "easier" it was that none of it had to actually be sexy, haha!
That's what makes it so relatable. Except for the true moments of 'ecstasy', sex can so often be awkward-- no less good... not necessarily anyway. Also as I read this I'm starting to relate too hard to the character, and wondering if what I thought was OCD might actually be something else.
The narrator of The Extra Man is this charming oddball just sort of figuring it all out, becoming very sexual and sexually proficient but never 'sexy'.
This is really good. I particularly like the struggle with "bad thoughts" knowing them at all...knowing they're bad and thinking them all the same. and the bravery to write them because its hard to do isnt it... write "bad words" regardless that its a story that its a point you're making and its about a character not what you yourself think. necessarily.
This fear is what stops me writing some of my ideas because i fear i won't write the "bad things" in a good way, like you managed it here.
the dialogue was great.
the inner monologue very relateable.
the sex was well done because i've got an oral fixation myself and now I am hungry. and yet I struggle on the receipt of it. I struggle to write about sex. so i admire it when its done well.
Thank you so much! This book marks a shift in my writing when I finally felt free to write a character the reader may wind up despising. It probably says something about me that the first character I threw under the bus in this way was based on myself, haha. Ironically, every reader's response to me has been sympathetic. One of the book's ultimate goals is to shout, "You are not alone!" I'm heartened to know it succeeds.
Still, it's terrifying to write this stuff, and that terror is multiplied by posting it on the internet for people to stumble upon out of context.
I think part of what helped me "go there" was writing in secret for as long as possible. I used to blab about my in-progress writing to everyone, but it often sapped my own interest and freedom to explore.
So, I say do it! Pretend you're the last person in existence, writing in the seconds before the sun explodes. No one will ever read it. And when you're done, look up, breathe a sigh of relief that the sun hasn't exploded, and take that extra time to rewrite. Keep doing that until you think, "actually, I'd kind of like for someone to read this." It may still need work, but the first stab always makes the biggest mess.
Hey Zachary, we're finally getting to the voices. Or so it seems. But these voices seem to come from his head. I've always thought of psychotic voices as being perceived by the hearer as coming from someone else. So perhaps the understanding you're trying to convey is that his psychosis is beginning to manifest not as auditory hallucinations but rather as 'persistent unwanted thoughts'? I'm happy to be corrected if I've got that wrong. (I understood the 'watcher at the window' in the opening chapter to be a hallucination, the first conscious manifestation of his condition).
On the other hand, this specific scenario is one where the novelty of being with a black woman - and his various unprocessed cultural and historical baggage about black and white relations in the USA could lead to these persistent, unwanted thoughts in the absence of mental illness - because human brains are weird like that. I found Lili very real and I like the banter between them. That people sometimes do fetishize sex with folks of other backgrounds is also very real, and it's good that you didn't let the discomfort of writing it or having people read it, keep you back from writing it.
Spot-on. I learned (and as you’ll see) it’s a small step from unwanted thoughts to unwanted “guests.”
And racism is basically a learned phobic response. As with America’s puritanical relationship with sex, our culture still isn’t doing us any favors. We’ve got a long way to go before we’re out of the woods.
As does Alex. His journey is just beginning. Thank you for reading, Amanda.
This drew me in. I'm gonna go back to the start. You've definitely got something here with the narrator. Comes across very sharply and realistic and compelling.
Thank you so much! A huge compliment.
Hey, I enjoyed this. It felt very real to me. It was brutally honest storytelling. I must admit a couple of times I was shocked by its explicitness yet very intrigued by where the story is going as well as Alex's thoughts about race and difference. “and a breeze pushes through the apartment like a slow school of fish.” beautiful. I love similes and I can just see it.
I am very curious to know more about his mind. What are the voices and what are him? So will read more.
Thank you, I’m touched. This book was terrifying to write and put out into the world for many reasons. It’s always heartening to get a positive response.
A beta reader suggested I cut the “school of fish” line. I’m glad I didn’t, because I like it too.
About Alex’s mind and the voices: I’ll see you in the next chapter! Thanks for reading, Janice.
Have you ever read Jonathan Ames? The way you write about sex feels a lot like ‘The Extra Man’.
I haven't, but now I'm really curious to check him out! Thanks for the rec!
I'd avoided writing about sex until this book, so this was a real discovery for me. If anything made it "easier" it was that none of it had to actually be sexy, haha!
That's what makes it so relatable. Except for the true moments of 'ecstasy', sex can so often be awkward-- no less good... not necessarily anyway. Also as I read this I'm starting to relate too hard to the character, and wondering if what I thought was OCD might actually be something else.
The narrator of The Extra Man is this charming oddball just sort of figuring it all out, becoming very sexual and sexually proficient but never 'sexy'.
This is really good. I particularly like the struggle with "bad thoughts" knowing them at all...knowing they're bad and thinking them all the same. and the bravery to write them because its hard to do isnt it... write "bad words" regardless that its a story that its a point you're making and its about a character not what you yourself think. necessarily.
This fear is what stops me writing some of my ideas because i fear i won't write the "bad things" in a good way, like you managed it here.
the dialogue was great.
the inner monologue very relateable.
the sex was well done because i've got an oral fixation myself and now I am hungry. and yet I struggle on the receipt of it. I struggle to write about sex. so i admire it when its done well.
<clapping at the back>
Thank you so much! This book marks a shift in my writing when I finally felt free to write a character the reader may wind up despising. It probably says something about me that the first character I threw under the bus in this way was based on myself, haha. Ironically, every reader's response to me has been sympathetic. One of the book's ultimate goals is to shout, "You are not alone!" I'm heartened to know it succeeds.
Still, it's terrifying to write this stuff, and that terror is multiplied by posting it on the internet for people to stumble upon out of context.
I think part of what helped me "go there" was writing in secret for as long as possible. I used to blab about my in-progress writing to everyone, but it often sapped my own interest and freedom to explore.
So, I say do it! Pretend you're the last person in existence, writing in the seconds before the sun explodes. No one will ever read it. And when you're done, look up, breathe a sigh of relief that the sun hasn't exploded, and take that extra time to rewrite. Keep doing that until you think, "actually, I'd kind of like for someone to read this." It may still need work, but the first stab always makes the biggest mess.
Hey Zachary, we're finally getting to the voices. Or so it seems. But these voices seem to come from his head. I've always thought of psychotic voices as being perceived by the hearer as coming from someone else. So perhaps the understanding you're trying to convey is that his psychosis is beginning to manifest not as auditory hallucinations but rather as 'persistent unwanted thoughts'? I'm happy to be corrected if I've got that wrong. (I understood the 'watcher at the window' in the opening chapter to be a hallucination, the first conscious manifestation of his condition).
On the other hand, this specific scenario is one where the novelty of being with a black woman - and his various unprocessed cultural and historical baggage about black and white relations in the USA could lead to these persistent, unwanted thoughts in the absence of mental illness - because human brains are weird like that. I found Lili very real and I like the banter between them. That people sometimes do fetishize sex with folks of other backgrounds is also very real, and it's good that you didn't let the discomfort of writing it or having people read it, keep you back from writing it.
Spot-on. I learned (and as you’ll see) it’s a small step from unwanted thoughts to unwanted “guests.”
And racism is basically a learned phobic response. As with America’s puritanical relationship with sex, our culture still isn’t doing us any favors. We’ve got a long way to go before we’re out of the woods.
As does Alex. His journey is just beginning. Thank you for reading, Amanda.