Writing is About Feelings - Jake Corvus
Writing is about feelings.
Our favourite books are the ones that make us feel deeply. The ones that invoke a passion in us, a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging. The moments we remember in our lives are the ones alive with intense emotion, good and bad, but the mundane pales away.
This residency has been a vivid tapestry of moments.
Could there be anything more bittersweet than being friends with Aiki Flinthart, and being the first recipient of the Flinthart residency? It is certainly an honour, but one that, in the quiet moments, sits side by side with sadness.
It also comes with an added degree of pressure. Not to produce some grand, crowning masterpiece of literary merit. Rather, I have felt the pressure to do well. To make the most of the time I have here at the residency, just as Aiki made the most of the time she was given.
For those who don't know me, I am Jake Corvus. A transgender father of two who has judged the Aurealis Awards and Norma K Hemming Awards. I am also the standing president of Vision Writers a speculative fiction group that has been running for 25 years. I have five novels published with various imprints of Harlequin.
The project I pitched for the Flinthart residency is about grief. Which is an odd thing to say about a queer romantic comedy. The first draft was written shortly after my father died, and is still steeped in the confusing, bewildered sorrow that came with the loss of a man I did not get along with, who did not accept me, and who never called me son.
It is a story about the worst parts of me, manifested as two men—two men who, despite the differences and mistakes between them, somehow learn to love one and other. Did I mention it’s a comedy?
Writing it on the residency has been a relief. Maybe that's an unexpected emotion, but it's an accurate one. This story has been waiting to come out of me, tight in my chest, like a clenched fist. At the Queensland State Library, it has tumbled out of me in great gulping breaths, filling the page with its urgent need to exist.
The last two years have not offered me much time to write. I have two children, a two-year-old, and six-month-old. They are glorious and wonderful and perfect. They are also time consuming. And kind of gross. My two-year-old eats dead flies. Dead flies are probably the only thing my six-month-old hasn't managed to eat yet.
Being selected for the Flinthart Residency was an amazing opportunity, but it's not easy to leave my boys behind every day.
This six-month-old misses me the most. For ten weeks, he missed his father every day. Just so I could write a book about the death of my own father. My mother sent me a video of him crawling for the first time. Which means he is one step closer to his life goal of eating the dog.
So, I keep writing, and I think about Aiki's family and the time they got to spend with her. And I think about my father, and the things we didn't say. And I think about my sons, and the things I am going to make sure I do say.
Writing is about feelings.
The Flinthart residency gave me an opportunity to put some of those feelings to paper. It was ten weeks well spent. I am making sitting at a desk, in a small room, with the lights off sound like a very profound thing. To be honest, the day to day wasn't very glamorous. I got up at 5am and feed my children, but not myself. I was at the Queensland State Library from 8am to 4pm and often was too busy writing to eat my lunch. I got home tired and hungry. And I did it Monday to Friday, for ten weeks.
In that time, I wrote 40, 000 words to complete the first draft, edited the second draft, got feedback from mentors, and edited the third draft. I worked extremely hard, and I am pleased with what I achieved.
But breaking the residency down to hours, and word counts, misses the point completely. It dismisses the fierce joy I felt when I was in flow, the exhaustion as I sunk into bed each night, the morning I cried in the car because my baby didn't want me to leave, the quiet hour I spent alone and in silence, watching and re-watching Aiki's farewell video on facebook.
If you are considering applying for the Flinthart residency, I promise it is a wonderful experience. Assuming you are willing to make the most of it. It can be profound, or mundane. Probably it will be both. You will beat your head on the desk in the same place I did. Maybe, sometimes, you will pick up the ghost of my flow and ride it with the same fierce joy. You can always email me to commiserate when it is difficult. And I will tell you:
Writing is about feelings.
Jake Corvus is a prolific writer living on the Sunshine Coast, in Australia. While in his mid-thirties, he is often mistaken for a teenager. He writes sci fi & fantasy, with a queer and inclusive bend. He watches too many horror movies to have any self-respect, and lives with an array of rescue animals, including shrimp, cats, dogs, guinea pigs and his sons. His favourite dinosaur is the parasaurolophus.
2023 applications for the Flinthart Residency will open at the end of May. Join the expressions of interest list for more information here.