Unravelling Organ

By now you've had a chance to read the entirety of Organ, the first full length novel I completed and published (self) online - I hope you enjoyed it and took something away to remember. Well, now that its behind us both and secured in the recesses of its own shadow I thought it would be cathartic to have a discussion on the story behind Organ. Dig into the bones of the beast and let Oscar Rubens live on in exploratory surgery, lets unravel Organ and see what falls out.

Check out the image to the right, this was the original design my little brother - and creative genius, seriously this boy is going to be iconic in the media industry. I asked him to sketch up something a child might draw for his broken family, detailing small elements of Oscars life - including the planes his father would help him spot and the deep connection with his mother. Samuel, my brother, nailed the style and age range for the young Oscar Rubens art style. I think he still has the original, but here is the first design we had and final one we landed on for the cover image you can see in the chapter posts.

So where did the story for Organ come from?

Tough question to answer with one definite point. I experienced my own medical emergencies similar to young Oscar Rubens over the years. One of which was a ruptured hernia that hadn't healed correctly and at some point in my adult life, came close to reopening - thankfully I caught the damage I was causing in time, but yes obviously absolute agony for a good long while with every day movements. The other was actually fairly recent, but somehow it feels even more similar to the story than the first. This was a minor cancer scare that left me with an "all-clear" and a patch of scarred up tissue around my ribs. Oddly mirroring the main characters early story arch. Perhaps Organ had some manifestation in the writers life just as it seeped into the life of young Rubens.

What about the characters?

Oscar Rubens was loosely based off a young guy I worked with during the pandemic, he was a really good looking and charismatic guy with a great sense of humour and the world ahead of him. I took lots of what I saw in him and also elements of observing/listening to my younger brothers, as I get older I really do see the world differently through their eyes. All that potential and unfortunately for Oscar, the most brutal trick life played was letting him feel that potential drip away from his palms.

Mary Rubens, Oscars devoted mother, was an amalgamation of all the strong mother figures I have found in my life. My own mother - obviously - who would have died before letting anything happen to her children, was the face I saw when I saw Mary facing down all the evils encircling her boy. In reality, the mother of Oscar Rubens, was a piss easy character to let breath. She was a force in herself and if anything was true from the get go, it was that this woman was dictating her own pages and I was merely receptive to her ebbs and flow.

The bastardly Doctor Boothe and his sterile castle in the hospital, this man was honestly and shamefully the most enjoyable character to write. He is a bastard, a terrible man with power beyond his own capabilities and yet - every step of Oscars story filters through his set of unhinged jaws. When I saw the things this man was capable of doing, the lengths I was being taken to as he toiled over the helpless body of Oscar Rubens and as he misled Mary along with him, I knew I had a character that would stain my writing life for as long as I put pen to paper.

Finally, let give a shout out to Nurse Katie, a woman who I met through sheer circumstance and took from what was originally one-scene and plunged her into the second most important character in the story of this tragic young mans nightmare. Katie is still in my mind as I have an itch that I cant scratch, I might as well tell the secret here - there is going to be a sequel to Organ, focusing on the after events and centered around Katies journey after Oscar, Mary and Boothe. I have no definitive date or timeframe, but the first thirty or so pages are held together somewhere, probably the worse words to hear from a writer as unorganised as myself but its a real thing sitting locked away in a file - Katie will return.

Looking back.

I have really nostalgic feelings about Organ, it was the first story that I really sank my teeth into and the first book I ever published. I have a photo of me standing in my hallway with a massive stupid grin on my face, holding the book in my hands. It was surreal, now granted my priorities and writing directions have changed, but it was still a special feeling.

Organ is a great closed story and for the most part I loved re-reading it as I uploaded it here for free, going over my old characters and locations really had me wondering where my next project will come from. I think the best books are those we can close, forget about and look back on with a smile years later. Organ is certainly one of those, and I still miss the boyish suffering Oscar Rubens experienced alongside me and I will never forget crying as the boy faded into the darkness before my eyes. 

Thank you for reading Organ, thank you for sticking with me despite thirty chapters and I hope you stick around for the next one.

Keep reading fiction and keep buying books.