[SOC] The Death of Noir, Simplified Online Presence

Where do I begin? I'm not sure today. My brain is a blank.

I feel more confident in writing fiction now. I was struggling with where I want to go with those projects or whether or not I should even do them. The first issue I had was what sort of voice or style to write in, and I have decided to continue in my Charles Noir minimalist "movie in your brain" style of narrative. I have experimented in other styles, but I am just not able to pull it off.

The other thing I have decided to do is retire the Charles Noir pseudonym and universe. I wrote those stories as an atheist which is why they come across as horrific and bleak. If I could give a label to that genre of writing, it would be "nihilistic horror." It was not my intention to write such stuff since I had no greater ambition than to be a complete hack writing pulp fiction. But as they say, themes emerge.

Becoming Catholic has made me come to grips with my past. I have a blog with numerous pieces written from a secular individualist viewpoint. I will retain those pieces for no other reason than as an archive of where I was then. But I am in a different place now. It is a better place.

My intention with fiction is to write from a moral point of view. This may not seem like much of a difference, but it is a huge difference for me. My wife tells me that my Noir stories highlighted a moral dimension by the absence of morality in those stories. The horror comes from a world without God.

My new stories will not be pleasant. They will be unpleasant like a crucifix. My hope is that they will make people think. I want the stories to linger in the brain and the conscience. I want my readers to be put in a better place at the end even if the journey to that end is traumatic.

I have toyed with inventing a new pseudonym, but I like my simplified online presence. I don't do Twitter or Facebook. I only have my single blog. I am taking down my other blog and archiving those stories for future reference. This simplifying has had a marvelous effect on me. All you really need is a blog. I have had numerous ideas for other blogs, but I resist them now. This blog is the only outlet that I need. It is the one thing I have done consistently for years, and it has brought me great joy and pleasure. It also is how I met my wife.

Simplifying is fun. There is something very appealing about taking something and reducing it to its essential elements. But I think there is a difference between minimalism and simplicity. I will have to explore that in a future blog post.

Posted in: