Constructing the Never-Ending Archive
Now that I’ve shared the introductions of the Exquisite Family Records Archives (EFRA), just enough to crack open the doors, I find myself wholly immersed. The stories themselves are not static. They ripple outward, bending space within the Archive. With each new tale, the Archives begin to construct themselves anew - issuing newly created training manuals, adjusting policies and procedures, appointing new staff to freshly invented departments. Whole wings seem to emerge in response to the stories being written.
The act of writing these stories has become inseparable from the ongoing architecture of the world building itself. And as the world expands, I must continually update my own memory. More than once, I’ve had to reread something I wrote months ago and rediscover forgotten details - details that, once remembered, unfold into entirely new narratives. The older stories beg revision. Fragments call out for companions. Details in a single paragraph can open a gate into its own garden of stories.
It appears this is a never-ending project.
Until recently, fiction was not a territory I roamed with any regularity. I’ve always been a slow reader, not prone to read for pleasure. My shelves have long been filled with books on art, mysticism, philosophy - volumes I revisit, books that serve as companions in my practice. Fiction was foreign terrain. So this year I have spent many, many hours listening to audiobooks on YouTube while I go walking or working on paintings to catch up a bit on fiction. So now, here I am, a year into this strange new field, mapping what feels like an ancestral house I forgot I’d inherited.
Which brings me to a practical matter: how best to share these stories with you here in the Substack environment?
Some of the stories have grown to over 10,000 words. Others are still short, tentative sketches. I woke the other morning with a solution in mind: serialize the longer stories across four weeks - one new story per month, released in weekly segments. Shorter tales may appear in a single post, but the larger arcs will unfold gradually.
I want to be clear: these are early drafts. Nothing is fixed. Until the stories make it to print, they will continue to morph, refine, grow - just as my paintings do. So what you’ll be reading here is not the final arrangement of a book. Think of it instead as stepping into my studio and catching a glimpse of what’s on the easel or working on the collage table for the day.
As a visual artist working through galleries, I’ve learned the necessity of beginnings, middles, and ends. Once begun, a painting must eventually reach its moment of conclusion - then photographed, inventoried, stored, and prepared for market. If I leave a painting out in view too long, I risk endlessly tweaking it. I have paintings I’ve worked on, revised and adjusted for as long as fifteen years. One hangs in my studio still. I may finally be finished with it, since I haven’t changed a brushstroke in ten years.
Maybe it’s time to varnish it.
The same discipline must now apply to my writing. Begin. Continue. Finish. Then, just as paintings are then selected and grouped into exhibitions, stories must be collected and assembled into books.
These serialized posts, then, are the shorter forms—the preview reels. When the books arrive, you’ll have the fuller stories in their most complete form, which, of course, I hope you will buy. How long that will take, I don’t know. But I do know this: part of the creative life is knowing when something has settled. When the shape holds. When the ink dries.
Until then, I hope you will enjoy the studio visits.
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#exquisitefamilyrecords #serialfiction #creativeprocess #neverendingarchive #touchonian
Created: September 11, 2025, 8:43 PM CST
I, too, am not a fast reader, but I LOVE ❤️ to read, and write ✍️. And I love so many genres of books (and magazines). Fiction, historical fiction, essays, self-improvement, poetry, lyrics to songs, biographies, autobiographies. I even love to read cookbooks! I am usually reading several books at a time. And I follow postings like yours, Austin Kleon, James Clear and Rob Walker, to name a few.
Your writing is so very good. I do not delete your posts until I have read them.
I have enjoyed your writings, but I admit I had fears that if I read your work before a book was published I wouldn't enjoy the book as much. However, as you yourself observed in this post, 'And as the world expands, I must continually update my own memory. More than once, I’ve had to reread something I wrote months ago and rediscover forgotten details - details that, once remembered, unfold into entirely new narratives'. I suspect that when the time comes I too will have forgotten. Your stories are in a sense hypnotic and I am glad that you are sharing them.