WTM ORIGIN STORY

The way I’ve been talking about ‘Blackbird Whisper,’ the way I’ve reflected on its journey from Russian screenplay to English novel, might have made you reckon that’s the only screenplay about which I deeply cared. That’s far from the truth. Though not far from honesty, either.

The screenplays that followed, after I ended up bidding my farewell to them: to name a few, there were ‘Dancing Twins’ and ‘Dark Light,’ which I had buried so long ago that I did not even condescend to open any resurrection case for them during the spark and spread of my novelist identity.

Then, in September 2021, came this idea. I dare take a guess and assume you might just now have started to wonder about the lingering repetition of September in my notes, where I almost always highlight it as a moment when the life trajectory shifts in some eerily metamorphosed format. For that, no explanation I can provide, as I remain as oblivious to it as you.

From 2020 to 2022, among all of the 10 screenplays I had written, there was one that, unlike the others, which needed at most around three months, took the entire year to reach its long-awaited ‘The End’ line at the bottom of its 120th page. It also took many unfinished and abandoned drafts along the way.

‘WTM’ was the last-ever screenplay I had written in that era. After that, there came a certain mode of paralysis, when and where, however arduous my efforts were, nothing substantial and noteworthy would come out of them.

Once I sent it to the Nicholl Fellowship contest back in May of 2022, leaving the capital, I arrived in my hometown, half in defeat, the other half in the grasp of the results I was about to receive in August of that year, results that were not particularly pleasant.

Whilst in the clutch of the process of its conception throughout the year that, in my particular case, for my peculiar situation, commenced in September of 2021 and lasted till May 2022, just a couple of weeks short of passing the milestone of reaching my 22nd birthday, the thought that encompassed me first and most was that perhaps I was on the path of paving a completely different, unique genre.

It will be a shameless lie to state that the story idea came on its own. It came from me. It came from deep within, from the place of grieving, and what I grieved was not only what I had had and then lost, but also what I had reckoned I could have had by then, yet still ended up falling short of reaching, reaching the mere edges of its furthest corners.

In its description, ‘Blackbird Whisper’ positions itself as a novel about grief. In my attempt not to spoil my debut work, in my intention not to reveal extra details of the plot, I might have omitted mention of a couple of other things about that story that would have revealed how the novel revolved around anything but grief, and even if it was, which possibility shall not be eliminated, it was acting as a baseline supporting element of the unfolded subplot.

If there is that one sole primary word or phrase by which I must describe ‘Blackbird Whisper,’ I will say:

And if there is that one needed word to define ‘WTM,’ I will claim:

I dare propose that stories, be they in the shape of novels or screenplays, that attempt to dig into the circumstances and cases of one’s grieving era are not that gripping, not that hooking, not that appealing to a modern reader and spectator.

Not that I intended or designed for it to be unlike anything else. It just came to me in its most alien shape, yet the language by which that ‘alien’ spoke with me from the very beginning carried excessive hues of familiarity and a native tone.

It spoke to me. It simply resonated. And why it had been the case, I hope I don’t need to provide any further explanations, or do I?!

I’m afraid that even if your answer is yes, I won’t hasten to alter everything I’ve confessed so far about WTM prior to this very line. Despite the first-ever failed status it received back in August 2022, when, in the form of a screenplay, it was still restricted, about this story that I first conceived at the age of 21, now at 26 I still ruminate about it with carefully held high regard.

So engrossed was I in the act of reaching the finish line for my story called ‘WTM’ throughout the first half of 2022 that I missed the timely theatrical release of that one interesting, peculiar, and unique movie that came to the big silver screen that fateful year. Nonetheless, by the end of that year, as my own screenplay had been submitted and denied further advancement, I caught up with the most hyped, talked-about, highly rated, and praised movie of the year, namely ‘EEAAO.’

I LOVE THAT MOVIE. NO. I CHERISH IT WITH UTMOST HONESTY AND SINCERITY, AND WHAT I CHERISH IS NOT JUST ITS MESSAGE AND EXECUTION, WHICH ARE AMONG THE LOWEST FACTORS IF WE WERE TO MAKE SUCH A LIST. WHAT I ADORE THE MOST ABOUT THIS FILM IS HOW UNCONVENTIONAL IT WAS. WHAT I RESPECT ABOUT IT IS HOW, IN SPITE OF ITS AWKWARDNESS AND UNIQUE BLEND OF STORYTELLING CHOICES, IT COULD SWEEP ALL THE MAJOR PRESTIGIOUS AWARDS, WIN ‘THE BEST PICTURE’ TITLE, AND REACH THE ACCLAIMED STATUS OF MAINSTREAM SUCCESS ALONG THE WAY.

WHEN I DEDICATE A WHOLE LONG PARAGRAPH TO ‘EEAAO’ IN THE FORM THAT SOME MIGHT MISINTERPRET IT TO BE A ‘LOVE LETTER,’ IT IS NOT MY WAY OF CLAIMING ‘WTM’ AS EQUAL OR SIMILAR TO ‘EEAAO.’

QUITE THE CONTRARY, THEY ARE LIKE CHILDREN OF TWO NEIGHBOURS OPPOSED IN THEIR VIEWS. HOWEVER, THAT DOESN’T CROSS THE FACT THAT BOTH BELONG TO THE SAME NEIGHBOURHOOD, BOTH PAY FOR THE UTILITIES THAT COME DIRECTLY FROM THE SHARED SOURCE.

BUT THE DISCUSSION OF THAT ASPECT IS THE TALK OF THE NEXT LETTER.