Other worldly internet queries and a collective afterlife
Interview with Olga Onoyko, author of The House Behind The Vacant Lot
This interview originally appeared in the below episode of She’s In Russia. The episode also features a reading of Onoyko’s newly translated short story, The House Behind The Vacant Lot.
This interview conducted in Russian and then translated by Lily Capozzalo.
Lily: I was hoping you could talk about your process in general, how it happens, is it like you write everyday, or does it happen at some specific time. And it would be cool if you could talk about your process in reference to this specific story, The House Behind the Vacant Lot, but I understand you wrote it a long time ago…
Olga: Yes, it’s a really old story. I wrote it when I was 19 years old and right now I’m 33. But looking back I can say that one of my two favorite narrative methods were present in this story. One of the methods is right in the first lines of a text, you lead the reader into a very different, very intensely different world that might seem absolutely unbelievable and impossible.
But in the Vacant Lot it’s not quite like that. This story starts with the description of relatively mundane, everyday things, and only later something unbelievable and extraordinary opens up.
That’s how I started then, that’s how the texts I wrote back then started and I still mostly use those two methods .
L: I didn’t understand, what was the second method?
O: The second one is to start with something really understandable, very real, usual, that doesn’t draw any attention.
L: Ok, and you use both of those to this day?
O: Yep, those are my two favorite methods.
L: When I asked about process I meant more like everyday moments, as in if you have some kind of strict routine, like you only write in the mornings for example. So the question is, do you have a routine now, and did you have one then, when you wrote this story, and has it changed over the past 10 or so years?
O: Yes, more than 10 years have gone by…but I’ve always written at night, or late evening. So when I graduated from music institute and started working an office job, I had fewer chances to write. Ideally I’d like to be able to write everyday, but unfortunately it doesn’t work out that way. Usually I manage a few days a week.
L: And still at night?
O: Yep. And then I have to wake up early in the morning.
L: Hmm, so how does that work you…you get an idea and start writing a story or a novel until it’s finished, or do you ever stop something in the middle of the process, or have several projects happening at the same time?
O: There was a time when I had a lot of unfinished texts and I continued whatever text I liked most that day. But then it worked out that every time I went to work on something I had only one text and I sit down and try to write at least a small chunk of text everyday. Otherwise it’s impossible to finish.
I’m a regular office employee and I’m not able to sit down and write for the whole day from morning to night. I end up having to cut out small chunks of time to write small chunks of text.
L: Ok, I think we’ll come back to the text, but let’s talk about your office work. I read on your site that you work in the IT sphere. That’s correct?
O: Yes, although I’m a musician by education, I work in the IT sphere, I work for the company Yandex.
L: Ok, so, I’d like to hear more details, if you’re ok with that. What kind of musician are you and I’m interested in how you transitioned from music into IT and what exactly you do at Yandex.
O: well, how can I put it…when I started studying music I thought it was a really elevated, romantic profession, to be a music teacher. By education I’m not a performer, I’m а musicologist, a theorist. A teacher of solfeggio, music history, and everything else that’s connected with theory. But when I finished music institute, it was a totally different time, the last echoes of the Soviet Union were melting and it became clear that teachers won’t be able to feed themselves, you need some other kind of work.
So, I always liked computers. I was in love with computers. And with friends’ help I got a job part time at the company Yandex. Then I got a promotion. Yandexians do search, like Google, it’s Google’s competitor in Russia. And my job is to essentially, among a lot of other people, to try to improve our search.
L: So you’ve been working at Yandex for a while then?
O: Еleven years. At work I encountered mystical phenomena and I have a big novel, fantasy, about magical Yandexians from a parallel world.
[laughs]
Basically, at work these moments occured when I saw queries from users, submitted to our search, that looked really strange, as thought they were submitted not from this world. That’s how I came up with the idea that the internet is shared between several parallel worlds, and something needs to be done about that because users can be in danger.
Then out of that came a long, really complex, big novel, that’s called “The Sea Of Names”.
L: That’s really interesting [laughs]. I will definitely read it.
O: It’s long [laughing]
L: I’ll try [laughs]. Well I’m a…I’m a slow reader in Russian. But the topic sounds really interesting.
Ok, now I understand a bit what you do at Yandex. So you’ve been working there a while and you plan to continue working there, you enjoy it there?
O: Yes. Yes, it’s wonderful work.
L: I’m just thinking how to formulate this question. Do you consider yourself a “writer”?
[laughter]
I don’t exactly know what I mean by that, I guess I just mean when you’re at a party or something and someone asks you what you do, do you say “I’m a writer”?
O: No, I prefer to say that I’m an employee at Yandex because to say I do these things for Yandex, improve its search a little bit, and in doing that benefit millions of users — that’s a lot easier to explain then to explain that, yeah I write books, I publish them…not at my own expense well, because, how can I put it…a lot of people write.
And, then you have to prove that you’re a real writer and that’s really awkward and I don’t want to do that.
L: Understood, yeah I totally get that.
Another question about your work, your texts, when you start right writing do you already know that it’s going to be a novel, or a short story…is that always clear at the very beginning? or even before you start.
O: specifically the size of what it’s going to be …yes, I can predict pretty accurately. But, when I start writing I far from know all the plot twists that will happen. They more often than not come to me later.
Some come to me when half the text is already written and…it really surprises you. because you absolutely didn’t expect that the story would include that kind of twist.
L: And is there an example of the process in The House Behind the Vacant Lot?
O: In that story no, that story was made up all at once because it’s not long. There’s…no space for sharp, unexpected twists.
L: Okay can you talk a bit about.. well I don’t want you to explain the story of course, or even the idea behind it. But I’m interested in…
O: Where did it come from…
L: Yes yes, exactly. What were you thinking about at the time?
O: Yes. I was still studying at music institute and we had a philosophy course, I think the same course exists in all institutes. we studied the history of philosophy and I learned that in Japan there was a kind of religious training that considered that the afterlife can be not only something the human soul experiences, but entire countries can experience it. An entire country like a single being, like some being of a higher order, can experience the afterlife.
And, as it happened, that was at a time when the living memory of the Soviet Union was departing. And of course I immediately thought about the fact that the Soviet Union.. it had died and… entered the afterlife, like a dead person might.
L: I’m wondering if you would talk a bit about your different names. You have several nicknames and one pseudonym. Do you still currently go by the nickname “Aurenga?”
O: Yes, Aurenga.
L: What does that mean?
O: It doesn’t mean anything except me myself. All my nicknames were like that. Under that name I write a personal blog and write some fanfiction. Just for the entertainment of my friends. They’re not serious texts.
L: Ok. And these names, you made them up yourself, no one named you them?
O: No, I made them up [laughing], they’re my names.
L: Uh-huh, ok. And what about the pseudonym Oleg Siryogin?
O: Oh.
[both laugh]
L: I’m just interested in why…оf course if you don’t want to answer this question that’s fine, but I’m just personally curious where the pseudonym came from and why you picked a male name in particular.
O: Well… it’s a really.. how can I put it. It’s a fairly silly Russian tradition that if there’s a lot of battles and adventures, then it’s considered that the author should have a male name, otherwise no one will read that sort of book.
Everyone expects that if the author has a female name then the book will certainly be about love, and everyone will be disappointed. Women buy the book expecting to read a text about love, and there are adventures…and men won’t buy the book at all.
But that’s a sort of a prevention, something like a superstition, because of course, everything doesn’t actually work that way.
But that kind of superstition exists and many people many believe in it.
L: Is that true specifically for the fantasy genre, or in general?
O: Mostly in battle fantasy. Like star wars, in all its various forms. I don’t mean fanfiction about Star Wars. I mean battles in space. And all the possible adventures surrounding that.
L: And you.. Ok a bit more about genre… would you say that you write in one genre? Or is that thought not really important to you?
O: I can say that I always write fantasy, but it’s fantasy in very different settings. It can be fantasy in space, it can be classical fantasy, in the Middle Ages, or it can be urban fantasy in the contemporary world, or it can be…how can I put it..there’s the term “magical realism”
There can be such a variety of fantasy types…critics, researchers consider them all different genres, but to me it seems like it’s all fantasy, just in different settings.
L: Ok, I think that’s it. I don’t know, if there’s something else you’d like to say specifically about that story, or in general, then please…
O: Oy. I’m afraid I can’t give any great wisdom. [laughs]
L: No I just..I just mean for example, I didn’t ask you really any questions that were specifically about the story because…well it’s really interesting and I don’t want any of my questions to demand any kind of explanation, which is why I didn’t ask those kinds of questions.
But I just wanted to ask about the process and if you wanted to say anything more about the process, I wanted to give you that opportunity.
O: well, how can I put it … I’ve always tried to write as best as I can. And many years have passed and now I can a lot better. Unfortunately, given there’s only one translation, I have nothing to prove that. But I hope that sometime I can prove that.
L: Ok [laughs] well I also hope so. I really hope more of your stories will be translated soon. But…Congratulations on your first story translated into English.
O: Thank you.
L: And Thank you so much for the time
O: Thank you.
L: Goodbye
O: Bye.
You can read the story, The House Behind the Vacant Lot, in Event Horizon Magazine.
