Chatterton
A Self of My Own
Chatterton A Self of My Own is available from Rocks Mills Press.
The Story
Thomas Chatterton -- a seventeen year-old boy -- tears out one of his ribs and creates a second self. A self who will live in an earlier century. A self who will write antique poems. A self who will safely live in the chest of the youthful boy. But the poems are so exquisite -- the poems so cry out for life -- that the boy decides to show them to the world.
Also included is the text of Chatterton's "antique poem," Aella.
This journal records the author’s reflections on the process of the crafting of the novella as it evolved through the stages of planning, writing, editing and polishing. It constitutes an effort to be as conscious as possible of the process whereby the single idea that suggested the topic of the novella was expanded into a complex work of art. Topics range from the nuts and bolts of writing to the nature of the novella as an art-form.
During the writing of the novella, the author kept a notebook which records the day-by-day development of the novella as it found its shape and style. The notebook – now in print form – reveals how a vast cluster of thoughts was sifted, selected, structured and polished into book-form.
The Project
Together, this novella, journal and notebook comprise the thirty-third installment in an on-going novel-writing project in which the author is exploring the concept of form and meaning in the novel, and of the novel as a form of expression in the 21st Century. All of the published journals and notebooks are available for free download.