Writer's Corner: Nicholas Kotar

We hope this will be the first of many regular installments of the "Writer's Corner", a chance for authors of books we carry to talk about the creative process and their inspirations and temptations in completing their work. What better way to kick off the series than with a member of the Holy Trinity Monastery & Seminary community? 5th-year seminarian Nicholas Kotar has just released his first book, a novel based on themes from traditional Russian fairy tales and myths. Naturally, we asked him to describe how his three years at Holy Trinity Seminary have influenced his writing process and the final published version of Raven Son.

Let me describe a typical Jordanville day. Wake up at 5:20, shower, say morning prayers (trying not to keep any sharp edges nearby, in case of pride going before a fall, so to speak…), gather all the inner strength necessary to brave the -25 F wind chill just long enough to make it to liturgy, go to liturgy, have breakfast, after liturgy go to class from 8-12, lunch, brief (5-10 minutes) break, monastery obediences from 1-4, then either kliros or homework, dinner at 7, compline until 8:30, then “free time”, then you drop down dead from exhaustion around 9:30.  

Anything strange about this schedule? When on earth did I have time to write, rewrite, edit, revise (and repeat five times) a novel? It’s an interesting question, not easy to answer. Carving out free time in Jordanville is truly an art, one that is handed down from generation to generation. Put simply, one can call it "making time out of nothing". Now, what I’m about to tell you all is extremely classified, so use this knowledge wisely, and in small doses (or it may endanger your health).

First of all, there is the famous “walk to the cross”. Nearly all monastic obediences and other assorted work bow in reverence before the walk to the cross. If you are brave enough to attempt it, no one will look at you askance when you come late to your assigned work (except maybe when you’re assigned to sing a service). And if you do it in winter, when the snow can be at chest level at some points, then brother seminarians look at you with barely-disguised wonder and admiration.

For me, these walks were a source of nearly constant inspiration. For the first time in my life (I’m a city boy), I was able to see the seasons change in one place so drastically, that you could literally not recognize the landscape one week from another. To feel grounded in one place, to sense the life of nature rushing forward with primeval force, to see God’s marvelous handiwork changing from life to death to resurrection, this is enough to affect a person on an essential level. For me, it meant a nearly constant desire to write. Encountering the divine creation was, for me, a stimulus for hours on end of my own sub-creation.

Ok, I did tell a bit of a lie. There’s always Saturday morning. On Saturday mornings I sometimes wrote, without getting up from my chair, for four hours straight. But back to the ancient Jordanvillian tradition of making time out of nothing.

Another very effective way of creating free time is “the swap”. If you absolutely need time, there’s always a willing seminarian to take over your little jobs (for a swap of responsibilities or for bacon, coffee, or mom’s recent shipment of pecan muffins). I utilized the swap more than once, but only when absolutely necessary. A seminarian never forgets that you owe him a favor. And a disgruntled seminarian is a very dangerous animal. Put him in a cage with a hungry lion… Watch out, lion.

But there was more than merely free time that contributed to Jordanville being the best place to write, possibly in the world. For one, it has the absolutely perfect combination of solitude and sociability. If you need it, you can be completely alone for days on end, and no one will ever notice you missing. If that becomes too much, you can always try socializing with the locals. And the locals, let’s be honest, provide nearly constant inspiration to write.

What I mean is, a good writer will always focus on character, on the mannerisms and idiosyncrasies and ways of speaking that make people on the page appear to be sometimes more real than real people. And Jordanville has an incredibly rich, varied collection of characters from all over the world. Ninety four year old jokesters, seminarians from 18 to 40 from Australia to Indonesia and back. Any age, any country, any type of personality – there are all here. All you have to do is make friends, and a true wealth of human character is opened to you. Live a few years in Jordanville, and any kind of dialogue you make up on page will sound authentic, because you’ve probably had that conversation already with someone! And I mean everything from the color of paint to communist beard-trims to the presence of mutants among us.

The last secret of making time out of nothing is simple. Time acts differently here. Some days you can accomplish nothing at all. The day has flown by before you even started. But others, it moves forward at a crawl, and by 8 pm, you’ve accomplished more than you normally do in a week. How does it happen? I don’t know. Don’t believe me? I challenge you to come and live the monastery life for two weeks. You’ll know exactly what I mean.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nicholas Kotar will graduate from Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary's Bachelor in Theology program in May of 2014. He also holds a degree from the University of California, Berkeley and is an accomplished singer, choral conductor, and recording artist. His first book, Raven Son, may be purchased through our webstore.