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. There was an idea, and a working through of that idea; What if, one day while going about ones 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. 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. 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 think we have the muse to thank for this one as well, but I won’t be expanding on that but to mention a natural behavior of mine; I am helpless to my musical inspiration.

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 would know, as you can tell. 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’m ignorant as a matter of course. 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’ (Barf bag). 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. 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. A poor metaphor, but the topic is complicated and I’m just a guy writing stories about flowers in his bedroom. 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 really ashamed. I mean—but, well, that comparison makes me seem like I'm up my ass more than I actually am. Screw it; why the hell don’t Romeo and Juliet just elope then? I mean, screw all the family drama right? And if she had just told Romeo that she was faking her death then he wouldn’t then kill himself to be with her and the tragedy wouldn’t be so. That’s reductive, I love Romeo and Juliet, and it’s a really good base-form of a romantic tragedy while having a fair amount of pastiche. The point is that Romeo and Juliet isn’t fucking “realistic”, or rather that it’s highly romantic. Get off your high horse, take those poindexter-ahh glasses off, and just read the story man.

Happiness: I’m not ashamed to say this concepts 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 ones 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. Currently there’s only this piece’s plot drive and a passing reference in one other story which, itself, holds a title inspired by another, though written without a title and only given one post-creation. 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’m young, I get to be a bit cannibalistic on occasion (not really that young though you quarter-century idiot).

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. Then that just sounds like aggrandizement, that wasn’t the intention. 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. So, Oleander Obsession was something that became very easy to write about, and after the initial scene of the “realization” came it was only all-too-natural to go somewhere else I hadn’t yet gone. In that way it 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. Stylish was one, and Immature Game was then called Paper Airplane. That’s two but you get the idea, not a bunch of floral imagery back then.

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 and world-building or characterization, 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 that 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—content aside—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 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 achievement 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. 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. Efflorescence idealizes suicide, sure, but the entire piece is breaking down the narrators internal world to the point that she even 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. I mean, I wrote it mostly while on breaks at my old job that a friend had got for me. 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. It’s better for the flow of my prose to write on a keyboard. And I type faster. 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 too 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