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Pearl Street Publishing Author's Column by Vyshali Manivannan who wrote Invictus at 15.

Aside from the question “Can I please be in your book?” the three questions readers have most frequently asked me are “How did you write a novel when you were so young?” and “What drives you to write?”  Youth being equated with restlessness and indecision, it’s unsurprising that people wonder at my early resolve to be a writer and the unwavering determination that has kept me focused on that goal since childhood.  Personally, I have never believed that age constrains writing ability.  I began seriously writing at age nine, following my first publication, an acrostic poem in a Virginia regional magazine.  I proceeded straight from poetry to fiction; technically, my first novel-length piece of writing was completed at age eleven.  As for finding the time to write, I literally did most of my writing in school—in fact, some of the character names in Invictus were inspired by the subject matter of the World History class in which I was enrolled at the time and which also proved conducive to my creativity.  (Needless to say, my teachers were less than thrilled, and it’s not a methodology I would recommend.)  After four years of short stories, poems, and some false starts, I began and completed the first draft of Invictus when I was fifteen and a sophomore in high school.  The first draft took less than a year to complete.  I then spent a few years revising the manuscript for publication under the Pearl Street Publishing Fellowship.  I was in my first years at college and traveling extensively, and I was also alternately working on four different novel-length works in my spare time.  Due to my college schedule, revision occurred sporadically.  So although I wrote the novel when I was fifteen, Invictus was published only a few months ago, and I have had an interesting time reacquainting myself with the characters and the work itself.

Since I first wrote Invictus, my writing style and subject matter have changed dramatically, so it is difficult for me now to remember how I felt when I first wrote it five years ago.  I do know that, as always, my characters and their separate and joint struggles carried the most importance in my mind.  My interest in exploring characters compels me to write and, like all the other characters I have written, Phalanx and Exodus motivated both the story and my desire to write it.  In retrospect, I realize that this novel was the first step in a series of writings that hinge on the subject of cultural identity and displacement, which I believe are two of the more important ideas I can contribute to society.  I have lived most of my life trying to reconcile aspects of my Sri Lankan heritage and my American identity.  In going over my past work, I discovered that displacement is an omnipresent motif in my writing, beginning with Invictus and continuing into the novels I am currently working on.  As “living” robots that do not belong in either human or robot society, Phalanx and Exodus represent this notion of displacement as it has appeared in my writing at its most abstract.  As the reluctant villain, Phalanx is further displaced: in addition to seeking a place in society, he is tentatively searching for freedom from the social constraints and conditioning that make him what he is.  The novel follows Phalanx’s struggle with his identity and with those who contribute to his conception of self.  The characters tell the story here.  The science in this piece of science-fiction is entirely secondary.

Science-fiction is not my chosen genre of writing, but it did allow me to begin my exploration of the theme of social and cultural displacement.  At fifteen, I was still struggling with questions of self-identity: to what culture did I belong?  Could I simply align myself with one side, ignoring all the other had to offer?  I didn’t think so then, and neither did Exodus: “That’s why I hate it when people ask questions like that,” Exodus said suddenly.  “Because you can’t just divide people into one thing or the other.  The soul is always made of all the little things mixed together into a spiritual soup, and you can’t sift the vegetables from the meat from the seasoning; you can’t just say I like this part or that part of a person, because then you’re not describing one person anymore but the characteristic of what could be thousands of people.  One person is a thousand parts all together; one person isn’t defined by one or two parts of a whole.”  My primary interest in writing derives from my interest in people, their flaws and strengths, the intricacies of their personalities and behaviors as evident in their interactions with one another.  Because of this, I find it easier to write longer fiction than short stories or poetry; while writing, I am first and foremost responsible to my characters, and when my characters have a story to tell, I am compelled to express that story in full.  Patience may not be one of my practiced virtues, but since I was eleven I have been driven to write by my characters and their widely differing stories.

Rereading Invictus, I see clearly that I wrote this book for myself.  It was the result of my own varied interests in artificial intelligence and ethics and my observation and understanding of people; it embodied an attempt to articulate and offer answers to the questions of social and cultural identity that plagued me as I was growing up.  But I also intended to spread awareness, even in this subtle way, of issues of social and cultural displacement; I wanted my readers to realize that people cannot be defined by their individual parts.  I wanted to deconstruct the idea of heroes and villains and show that the social labels applied to people are not so simple, that villains can be kind, heroes cruel.  I wanted to suggest that the world may not contain predetermined spaces for each of its inhabitants but that maybe even social constructs can be redrafted, redesigned.  My current writing ventures follow a similar thematic vein, and although Invictus now seems very far from me in terms of style, genre, and content, it remains close to my heart: after all, it was the starting point for every piece of fiction I have written since and is also my first published novel.  Writing has been my singular passion since I was nine years old, and the release of Invictus has been a great achievement for me as a person and as a writer.  There are few things in this world that I consider an addiction—among them coffee, chocolate, and writing—but only the latter has puzzled me, afflicted me with intervals of suffering and ecstasy, and, finally, illuminated and awakened me.  Writing is an agent of change, and it is my single greatest hope that my writing will reach people, puzzle and illuminate them, and, one day, inspire change.

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