Origins: I can’t really place the first time I read Schoolgirl. It must have been 2022 by the edit list on this story in my Drive. I don’t think there was much in the way of “intention” to this piece, at least in the inception. There was an idea, and a working through of that idea; What if, one day while going about one’s life, the idea of being done with it appealed greatly? That was it. Now, a couple things come up when you say you want to write something like that, and then I had Schoolgirl on the brain. The story is less something I am proud of as a “creation by myself” and more a practice in emulation to a degree. Thompson said something about copying The Great Gatsby word for word five times to get a feel for the rhythm of the text. That’s a crazy thing to do, and I’ll admit that I tried it. Efflorescence is something like that, but less copy/paste and more practicing form.

February 2023 is the start of my new method of writing after the period of experimentation from 2021-2022. Singularly because of this story. The stories from before were definitely more “me” than the later more directly inspired work but they also lacked pathos except in extreme circumstance. I think, of the pre-2022 work, the only one with bones is Immature Game, call me biased. Efflorescence was an honest attempt to get down a longer-form story, that was one facet of the thing. Then, also, to write of a subdued, or perhaps base, emotionality. It was a vibe I was trying to get down on paper for awhile at the time, so it was not an explicit singularity of intention for this piece in particular. The piece was a collection of some of my better efforts at the time.

I tried to keep it grounded. This was probably only followed through with in certain passages, while I allowed—or got carried away by—more flowery expansions in the prose at certain critical points. This isn’t necessarily something I see as a negative. As a whole the story is much more grounded than what I was doing around the time, and especially prior to writing it. I was still very obsessed with certain themes before that period, and had only really found the Japanese writers of the early 20th century shortly before this piece.

Ideation: The big fish in the room. Am I justifying Suicide by referencing it the way I am? I don’t think so. That is, well, I don’t like vilification, if that makes sense. I believe that shame is, first and foremost, the driving factor of the interpersonal issues in the world. I don’t think you should feel ashamed for being emotional, and to a degree, if we’re talking about chemistry, you shouldn’t be ashamed about something that is, perhaps due to circumstances involved, beyond your control. The problem when dealing with stuff like this is that slope of not vilifying the self while also not justifying the action. You’re not wrong to think that way, but then we have to come up with a good reason why what you’re thinking is incorrect without making a moral judgement upon your ‘self’.

So people who write about it probably are right to write about it, but they most often do it in ways I find slightly objectionable. In media and literature. Or maybe that’s a straw-man, I can’t care enough about what other people say about things like this. The ones who get the light are usually fetishists or moralists. People who adore No Longer Human without having read Villon’s Wife or Setting Sun. People who think you go to the fiery place if you do it, and besides, why don’t you think about how they would feel? Nonsense, hate it. Shut up. My point is that I was compelled by my own emotionality and intellectualization of everything that happens in the world—because, of course, I am ever-so ‘writerly’.

The story, however, does not follow through much on the matter. The summary is that you should not do that terrible thing because that, itself, does not lead to anything. Vague and trite though that conclusion is, it’s definitely not incorrect. Overall, it concludes, and that is all. Rolling credits before the show has reached its natural conclusion is objectionable. My philosophy on living aside, the point is that I resent people who cast morality like weed-killer. Sure, it kills the weeds, but overwrought with poison, the plants fail to grow.

The point is that it’s probably not that world-breaking if I write something like this.

Method: Yes, I am aware that it is unrealistic to grab live Oleander leaves and immediately brew them into a tea that will kill someone in a single night. I think people who get overly hung up on mechanics in something like this are a bit like the fun police. Poetics and romanticism, I’m guilty and I’m not sorry bucko.

Happiness: I’m not ashamed to say this concept’s origin is inherited. However the phrase “Happiness is knowing…” and so forth is something which I have written as an answer or as a step towards answering that origin concept. That person inspired a great deal of what I’ve sort of developed lately. There’s a spitefulness in their work which I adore, and a singular exasperation with the ticking of the clock despite one’s own hideousness. Then the loneliness of self-knowledge. And finally the rejection of loneliness, hideousness, and the clock itself. That person, I’ll admit, is someone I really admire. I’ve referenced them a lot. Well, probably more than I can recall. The point is that, while the answer to the misunderstanding is a process which I have created; the concept of the misunderstanding is something I’ve inherited from another. I was younger, three years younger than I am now. I’ve always said it’s the duty of the young to cannibalize their forebears.

Oleander: A petal. Another heavy inspiration. Though much older, I was in high school when I found Oleander, and the emotion it elicited is something which I had trouble contending with because I was, at the time—being a teenager—too fraught with emotions to really make sense of anything at all. It became a bit of a white rabbit for me, leading me down a lot of the pathways which have led me where I am. So in the end it worked out to a degree, I’ve become somewhat more educated because of it, though its influence has hindered my involvement in education. Contradictory, specializing in a certain sentimentality, or, rather, a certain pathos of devotion before the time was right. I got dragged down by emotional circles when I should probably have been studying math.

Oleander did kill my grades, I’m not going to lie and say that was good. It led to the person that I am, but that doesn’t mean a single thing. Is the person I am better or less than the person I would have been were I to pay attention in class? Probably not, if anything, it gave me a direction to go in. I was on the downward academically anyway. Even though that time was rife with errors, socially and personally, that I was able to be what I am in spite of what had happened until that point is thanks to that Petal of Oleander and it’s various cousins. So, Oleander Obsession was something that became very easy to write about, and after the initial scene of the “realization” in the story came it was only all-too-natural to go somewhere else I hadn’t yet gone.

In the drafting phases Efflorescence was called Oleander, or Spring Oleander. In that way Efflorescence was actually the first flower story I ever wrote. Even Rugosa, itself quite early, came much later after this one. I was mostly doing those one-word titles then, Fritillary and Diffidence and that thing. A good friend of mine once said my prose was flowery, I’ll say it again; Phooey!

Length: When I was younger I actually didn’t have a problem writing at length. I mean, the first actual story I wrote myself was a nine-part “book”—probably more like a novelette, similar, in length, to Efflorescence, though sectioned into “chapters”. However in later years that mood soured dramatically. It wasn’t exactly that I stopped being “able” and more that, whenever I started to write at length, I just rambled on about nonsense and bullshit that was totally unrelated. A trait inherited from a certain Sacred Book, but the tangents in that book are valid, I was young and dumb and fell into tangents without meaning. When I started writing with intention for magazines I broke down my length quite heavily.

Most places around want something between 1k and 4k words, with the next tier of less options being 4k-8k, and then a rare 9-10 and a damn near impossible to enter 10k and beyond. Only a few of these longer form mags are terribly popular and of those many are prohibitively “austere” to entry. That said, I wanted to write a book at some point, and I had to re-learn how to write length more naturally than I had been. Efflorescence is indicative of this at some points, but the later stories benefited from the endeavor. I think Alstroemeria is very good in its construction, and that is partly due to the practices learned by working on Efflorescence.

Placement: Of the stories I have written, there are only a few that I would actually call “unpublishable”. For that definition we are simply referring to content and not format, structure, or the general mechanicality of prose. I think that Narcissus isn’t really something that can be read without context, so it’s fairly unpublishable. Then there’s a few more; maybe Cyclamen is a bit too much of a vignette—despite the narrative structure being present, the content of the story is incredibly subdued. Hemerocallis too, it’s a touch too abstract. Efflorescence is unpublishable, I realize, because of the Ideation inherent to the piece.

Frankly a greater deal of people would probably call it irresponsible to publish something like this which “rationalizes” suicide. So, okay, don’t send it out. I want people to read it, and it is important as a landmark of my authorial journey. So, yeah, it’s the top story on my site. It isn’t hidden in a segregate folder for organization, it’s not hinted at, it’s not shamed. I put it first and foremost, and in my Authorial Letter I think I even recommend starting with it, despite there being stories on this site which I wrote way before it. For all of the sections above, this story has value to me, so I’m going to be clear and honest about it.

Bias: I love this story. Straightly, I don’t generally think I’m a good writer—mechanically, that is. I’m purple to a fault, I write prose that is so flowery that it gets mixed up in its own metaphors until the actual physical nature of the plot is lost for the imagery and the suppositions. I don’t care. From that behavior I’ve written things like the Sakura series—or what I have written of it so far—and even those stories about Shouko and Nishiki. Aster Rose is a story which I value intensely. I’m good at vibes lately, I’m pretty damn good at wrapping a character around their own spiraling self-loathing until the text looks more like a suicide note than a coherent story.

That’s where my love for the art lies; in the mind of the character. In the fullness of a personality and the follow through of its neurosis. There are several stories on this site which are quite straightly just emotional vignettes. Cool. I love them for what they are. Something with a more defined plot like Rugosa and Akan can appeal to me, and I don’t hate them, despite how much I talk down to Rugosa in its author note. It’s why Tokyo Comedy feels smoother, because that woman is a character I would write, in a situation that is external. Good times, ship it. And I did. I still get lost in the theater of the mind, and that’s where the meat of the story should be. I’m not exactly a Naturalist, nor am I really a Realist, but I am a guy who understands those concepts. That’s how we write City Lights. People talk less than they think. That was what City Lights was trying to get across.

Efflorescence idealizes suicide, sure, but the entire piece is breaking down the narrator’s internal world to the point that even she becomes unsure of her decision to end it. Then the choice of protagonist, I mean, how much of her internalism is genuine intellectual discourse and how much is just teen angst? Quarrels, sir, quarrels.

Conclusion: I could write more about this story. It was a passion project that I really hadn’t thought myself capable of at the time. The “writing thing” was just something I did in the dark sometimes. I was probably drinking too much before then, during that time, and after. Getting high with my roomates and avoiding things. Still, once the pen hit paper—metaphorically, that is—I couldn’t stop myself. I mean, I wrote it mostly while on breaks at my old job. I even bought a battery-powered bluetooth keyboard in order to type while at work because I don’t like typing on the phone keypad. Then, when all was said and done, we had what became this. Sure, editorially it probably needs work, I’m not going to say it’s perfect by any means, but it’s a damn good result considering everything else.

I toyed with the idea of killing her. I toyed with the idea of her actually describing her own appearance. Both of those were passing thoughts. It didn’t matter and it would be too, off? I didn’t want to kill her, so I didn’t. That is the arrogance of the author. “Another fated of [her] generation” and so on. That felt horrible, so no thank you.

What matters though is that I adore the man who wrote Schoolgirl, and his end is something I am constantly at odds with. I reject the idea of committing suicide for my own aforementioned ideals—assuming, of course, that section of the site remains up. I love it, and I think it’s worth something. That’s it, that’s a conclusion enough for the thing which I’ve spent so much breath defending. It speaks for itself, and then also does not speak. I’m arrogant enough to write about the complex mindset of a downward suicidal depression steeped in intellectualization, but I don’t have the hubris to come up with a final moralizing stance on why suicide is a bad thing. I give you three possible, pre-defined and much accepted, answers, but leave the final one to you and to Ida herself as she falls asleep on the homework assignment.

The girl lives.

-TJ Daly