The Wilderness Diary – a few questions answered

Hi Dear Readers,

I just wanted to address a few questions I have received about The Wilderness Diary.

First, even though it is fiction, it is more of fragmented series of diary entries rather than a traditional novel. It is in some respects a ‘dream-of-consciousness‘ study. The theme is one of ‘Aspect Conflict’ and breakthrough. It was a deliberate attempt at experimenting with poetry and prose and trying to fuse the two together.

It was a huge personal journey with many layers to it and I wished to create a word landscape that suited the Hero’s interior struggle and sense of ‘Other’.

The use of capitals is an old style of writing and was intended to help the visual emphasis of certain words and to group together certain ideas. I wrote The Wilderness Diary to be spoken out loud so sometimes the capitals are accentuated speech direction. It was also to give it a more poetic effect and that the hero was from another land (and in certain ways of thinking, from another Time).

The use of images/line drawings was to help break up the diary fragments, give the text some extra space as well as symbolically chart the Hero’s progress.

All in all, it does challenge the Mind’s preconceived notions of what a novel ‘should be‘, but hopefully once you’ve dived in the poetic sweep takes you on an extra-ordinary journey of the sub-conscious, the historical real world and the land of fantasy.

More answers soon

Keith x

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