In 1995, when I was twenty-five years old, my brother and I bought our first computer. He wrote a page about people having sex. I wrote a page about people having sex too. Then, I wrote about a guy named Mike, twenty-two, who played guitar and worked in a restaurant. I amused myself for fifty pages, until I read an article in Writer’s Digest about being brave. This article inspired me to just let loose and not worry about people judging me by what I wrote. I smiled, realizing my story was about to become very interesting indeed.
This article in Writer’s Digest flipped a light on inside my head. This light, in turn, illuminated a character lurking in the darkest shadows of my mind. This being called himself The Cave Beast.
At the time, I was working at a job that I didn’t like and I sometimes fantasized about just running away and living in the woods. Through the character of the cave beast, I got to do just that: escape from my life. I got to run away and live in a cave all by myself.
As I wrote about the cave beast, I realized that he wasn’t happy merely living in a cave. In fact, he wanted to rise above all of his fellow Earthlings, and go live in a castle on the moon. He wanted to become a god and live with other deities. In order to earn his right to live among the gods, he had to follow their orders and complete an initiation. The initiation was comprised of five tasks, which would test him both mentally and physically. After he completed each task, the gods would transport him to the moon, where they would use a ceremonial dagger to carve a slice into his chest. After each slice, the cave beast wouldn’t see blood--he would only see a gold color glistening inside each incision. There would be five cuts: a vertical cut, a horizontal cut, two diagonal cuts and the circle cut. This symbol, called a Zerod, looked like a wagon wheel. (We later discover that the cave beast had once had a very ugly encounter with a wagon wheel--an encounter after which nothing would ever be the same.)
I can’t begin to imagine how distressing it must be for people like the cave beast, who hear voices inside their heads. In fact, I lived for several months with a woman who had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. I used to hear her talking to herself in her bedroom. She was a very kind, warm, intelligent human being. It would have angered me if anyone would have called her “crazy”. Even though the character of the cave beast hears voices, and sometimes engages in unusual behaviour, he is not crazy either. He is simply a human being in need of help.
Now at the age of thirty-nine, as I reflect on my novel, I think I can see why I wanted the cave beast to suffer alone in his cave. In my youth, I had a few nasty altercations with people who had been drinking. When my wounds were still relatively fresh, at the age of twenty-five, it felt good for me to make an alcoholic suffer, even if only a fictional alcoholic. I got to make the cave beast suffer alone, after he had hurt people during his own drinking episodes.
I have since made peace with some of the sad memories from my youth. The people in my life who had had drinking problems are fine people now. I love them and I’m glad to have them in my life. I now only feel empathy for people with substance abuse problems. I see them as people who just need help, and not people who I want to see banished to caves!
When people read my novel, I hope they won’t judge me either. When I wrote the initial manuscript for this novel, in 1995-1999, I wrote with bravery. I didn’t worry about what people would think of me. I also researched with bravery. The cave beast did strange things, and I did some strange things too. For example, when the cave beast pulled some hair out, I pulled some hair out. When the cave beast ate some grass, I ate some grass. As a result, I was able to be accurate as I described the actions of my cave dwelling character.
Once I finished the manuscript in 1999, I sent query letters to the top ten biggest publishing houses in the U.S., and they all rejected me. I decided my novel was too dark and strange anyway, and it was probably for the best that I wasn’t going to publish this work. But six months ago, I read this manuscript after it had sat on a shelf for over ten years. I thought, hmm, this is really quite an interesting read! I proceeded to get six different friends to read the manuscript, and they all had different ideas for me on how to improve my book. One of these ideas came from a woman who had an interesting experience from her own youth.
When she was a little girl, her friends had an initiation for her to complete. She had to eat a piece of shit. I won’t go into detail, because that’s not my story to tell. However, I realized that the cave beast simply had to eat his own shit!
I remembered how I had eaten grass, so I could properly write about eating grass. I realized that I would now have to eat my own shit, before I could accurately describe the act of eating feces.
So, I ate my shit. I only ate a small piece, about the size of a plum tomato. But by doing so, I gained a great deal of insight into feces eating. I was able to be very descriptive when I wrote about the cave beast eating his bowel movement. (By the way, vegan feces isn’t remotely as disgusting as the feces of an omnivore, so I know the cave beast would have had a much worse experience-—plus, he had to eat a bigger load of shit.)
OK, as I write this, I’m suddenly feeling all alone. I’m feeling like if you were sitting right next to me, you’d suddenly be realizing that you had an appointment you were late for, and you had to get going. That’s OK. I understand. I feel strange about what I did too. I can assure you that I have no plans of ever eating shit again. All I know is that I wanted to write the most powerful novel I could write, and I believe I accomplished my objective. If I had to dip my toe into dark waters once or twice in order to realize my dream, then so be it. Writing this book was a great adventure, and I don’t regret any moment of the creative process.
By the way, if you want to know what it’s like to eat shit, I’m not going to tell you. You can either eat shit yourself, or buy my novel. The choice is up to you!
Click this link to preview and buy The Initiation.
Love John Sakars
