The Woman in the Film
A short novel.
Katya locks herself in her apartment for seven days to finish the script for an art film: a portrait of a self she wants to leave behind. As pressure builds and memories surface, she slips into the space between the real and the unreal.
First draft complete. Now revising.
“[Katya] is real, multifaceted, and utterly, heartbreakingly, beautifully human.”
For “readers who aren’t looking simply for a story, but also an immersive experience.”
— Rachel Small, Editor, on the first draft.
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Background
A few years ago I wanted to make an art film about a past self. It was a moving image, fragments of a story. More of a visual poem I imagine.
I’m autistic, and for autistic people it is not uncommon to live with the desire to die close to the mind and heart. It took me to the edge of life more than once. Each time it opened a choice for me, about the life I wanted to live, if I were to live. In a way, death was a companion that illuminated possibility in life. Those possibilities became the life I chose, and contribute to the person I am becoming.
I never made the film, but the story stayed close to me.
I lost creative writing in my twenties, and something was drawing me back. I stumbled upon a writing group led by Trevor Martens, and decided I’d see what happens. I ended up choosing between a surreal dystopian story set in Mexico City and this one, so Trevor asked what I would be most scared to write. It was this one.
Writing this has also given me something the film never would have. Katya’s inner world. Her circumstances are invented, but she is a lot like me, and prose took me to places I would not have gone had I made the film.