Orien and the Meta Nature of My Indie Writing Career

 Orien and the Meta Nature of My Indie Writing Career

By Bryan Paul

Disclaimer: This essay contains topics involving bullying and suicide which may be triggering to some readers.

Over the summer, I was taking an online class in Sociology and at one point I was reading the textbook and came across a passage that caught my attention, distracting me from concentrating on my studying. I became lost in my own thoughts, remembering a time when my inner thoughts, observations and fantasies were brought to life on paper. 

The passage that caught my attention was in a blurb on Chapter 6, pg. 151 of the textbook “An Introduction to Sociology, 3rd edition”: 

“Cyberbullying first made international headlines in 2010 when a fifteen-year-old-girl, Phoebe Prince, in South Hadley, Massachusetts committed suicide after being relentlessly bullied by girls at her school.”

I was living in South Hadley at the time when this happened. I wrote a very grim poem in response to this event, which can be found in my book Playground and also in a clip from a radio interview on YouTube. Over the years I’ve had mixed feelings about the poem and considered the possibility that the graphic imagery was too exploitative-however, I will say, in my opinion, it’s not as irresponsible as the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why which tackled similar material but I felt was more focused on shock value than raising awareness.

The bullying event also served as inspiration for the backdrop of my book Orien and the League of Artists which was meant to be a sequel to a fantasy book I previously wrote titled Orien Battles the Fog-devils. The previous book leaned heavily on fantasy tropes. In an attempt at world building, I borrowed ideas from Harry Potter and decided that there should be an evil sorcerer, similar to Voldemort lurking in the background and a fantasy creature similar to the dementors called a fog-devil.

When it came to writing the second book, I had a different idea in mind, which leaned in on the meta aspect of the main character. ‘Orien Sage’ the poet and dessert crafter from the Angeline Village was Bryan Paul the poet and sundae artist from Friendly’s in South Hadley, MA. The choice to make the book self aware was deliberate-and a bit of a problem, because it limited my readership to those who were in on the meta commentary, which made it difficult to market.

I thought that if I incorporated socially relevant topics such as bullying, suicide, substance use, social media, the fear of missing out and everything that I had taken notice of as a resident of a small town in Western Massachusetts, that I would have created something powerful, that might even get me some attention. 

I’ll admit, though it was a little shameful of me to consider my own fame and recognition as motivation for tackling topical subjects-however, I tried to approach the topic of teen bullying as observed by the protagonist Orien Sage, an older 2nd person observer, with care and kindness. My heart was in the right place as can be observed by this passage:

In Chapter II, pg. 41 of Orien and the League of Artists, Orien is listening to the radio in his quarters and stops the dial at a news program:

“She was an above average student and she was very creative and liked to draw,” said the voice of a man and Orien couldn’t help feel a connection to whomever they were talking about.

”Were you a witness to any mistreatment?” The interviewer asked.

”I’m sorry to say, I witnessed more of such than I’d like,” the man, who Orien now guessed was a teacher, said in a voice that was gravel, a very sad, serious voice…

Orien sympathizes with Neomi (the bullying victim) and later in the novel (big spoilers ahead) he identifies with a young girl who posts poetry in a webgroup known as ‘the League of Artists’, which is the Promythica equivalent of a social networking platform. The poet, Loria, is revealed to be one of Neomi’s bullies.

I was throwing everything I could at the wall with that book, to see what would stick, including using the Harry Potter tropes and creating a cult of death eater-like followers of an unseen evil sorcerer named Dasahd. There was even an attempt to go full villain at the climax of the story, essentially turning Loria into Draco Malfoy or even Tom Riddle. 

I still feel it’s a shame that this piece of work (which is not perfect and honestly more art than literature) never got its due, which is why it’s come down to me putting in the extra time and effort to analyze my own text and say: “hey you out there, reader, this is what I was trying to do…”

I like how the book opens with Orien riding his mini speeder to the steamee parlor, but part of the problem with what I was doing was that the charm and appeal I was going for was dependent on the reader knowing who I was and the fact that I was the narrator.

Chapter I, Pg. 8 reads:

The bell jingled as he let himself in. He saw many scholars sitting with books and drinks, many ladies, some of which, busy with studies, others conversing amongst friends, but no one was grasping to the paperbound book ‘Harmoni’-copies of which sat unsold on the shelf in the corner no longer in view of the customers.

The lady at the money counter had hair of pitch black and nails to match. She sat at a chair absorbed in her own reading-a worn paperbound copy of the popular romance series ‘The Nightfall Chronicles’ in which a peasant lady of a modest nature becomes romantically involved with a noctornahl, a seductive creature of the night.

Orien, as a scripter, had not the qualities of a noctornahl and its popularity suggested that a person of his type could never fully seduce a lady which was a sad thought, but he put it out of his mind.

”Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t notice you,” the lady said and she got up from her chair.

This was me commenting on the current trend of supernatural romance in fiction and media, that started with Twilight and continued to grow in popularity with The Vampire Diaries. It is also me commenting on my own insecurities, based on the ideal male image and stereotypes in the media at the time, as being represented by characters like Edward Cullen and Jacob Black.

The passage above is also based on the reality of me having my poetry book Felicity on display at The Thirsty Mind Cafe in South Hadley. While I feel it is a little ‘woe is me’ to bring up what I call the ‘starving artist’ syndrome, it sets up the character of Orien Sage in a way that I hoped would endear the reader to him (and me), if not for the whole undiscovered genius aspect, than at least for the overlooked sensitive soul aspect. 

Both myself and my fictional counterpart have the same issues and complexes that are common with underground and indie artists-not just poets, but also musicians. Music and musicians play a role in the narrative as well, with Orien trying to befriend a singer from his past. Holli Belle was designed to represent my dream girl at the time-except I wanted to be realistic and have the hero not get the girl.

Holli Belle as a symbol, rather than a character, represents the music scene as a culture filled with hyper-socialized people who smoke herbs and have fleeting relationships. Other characters criticize Holli’s alleged fast lifestyle, yet, Orien doesn’t, because he remembers her as a fellow scholar from his past at Penhaven Arts school.

The closing lines of the novel are:

She may not be in his league, it would seem, but there was a time when they were both scholars at the arts school and they were not so different, when they were both part of the league of artists.

There is a play on the phrase suggesting that a person is ‘out of’ someone’s ‘league’ and also a callback to the name of the social network platform used in the book. As an extrovert, Holli, is a different personality type than the introverted Orien and runs in a different circle than he does. I ask the reader to question what it means to be part of social groups and what they represent. Musicians thrive in being part of a collective, yet writers, like Orien, fly solo. Despite their differences, they share the same goals of wanting to belong and be noticed.

WORKS CITED:

Conerly, Tonja R, et al. Introduction to Sociology 3E. OpenStax, Rice University, 2021. 

Meyer, Stephenie. The Twilight Saga. Litttle, Brown and Company, 2010

Smith, L. J. The Vampire Diaries. 1st HarperTeen pbk. ed. HarperTeen, 2007.

Paul, Bryan. Playground: A Poetry Collection. KDP publishing platform, 2012.

Paul, Bryan. Orien and the League of Artists. KDP publishing platform, 2012.

Paul, Bryan. Orien The Arts Scholar. KDP publishing platform, 2014.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter Series. Scholastic Books, 1996

Yorker, Brian (creator), Asher Jay (based on a book by). 13 Reasons Why. Netflix studios production, 2017

….

ORIEN AND THE LEAGUE OF ARTISTS is available to purchase on AMAZON

My Current Path (Fall 2025)

My Current Path

By Bryan Paul

It all feels like deja vu, to be back in school-like taking a time machine back to being fifteen years old. I remember in my apartment days having dreams where I was back in high school, except I was the age I was at the time of dreaming. In my twenties I had those dreams. In my early thirties I had those dreams. At this moment, now, I am on the cusp of turning 39 (just a month and a half away) and I am at HCC-but it feels no different than high school. It all feels like I’m living one of those dreams-but I know how the story of my high school career ended and so I can’t help feeling it could all end up the exact same way.

I’m taking an introductory theater class. There is a familiar feeling sitting in the black box theater and I am reminded of my high school acting class. It was the largest class I had been in. Being in a large class like that was overwhelming, but I was learning to accept the fact that I should be taking risks. It led me to make choices despite seemingly debilitating social anxiety. 

I lived in Westfield, MA with my dad. My school was Pioneer Valley Performing Arts High School. At the time, PVPA was in Hadley, MA. PVPA had open mics during lunch period every Friday, so I shared some poetry and tried stand up and MCing at one point. I ran for student council twice, but lost. People knew me and knew my name. Within the walls of school I felt noticed and could connect with people, yet everyday I took an hour long bus ride home to where I was isolated. This was one of the biggest problems of my academic life, especially when it came to socialization-all my peers lived far away from me. My comfort zone, which was school, was far away from me. Distance stood in the way of my social life.

I had been struggling with making connections and understanding social behavior before entering high school and was diagnosed with Asperger’s, but no one knew what that meant in 2001. There were no well known representations of autism spectrum disorder in popular culture. There was no Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory yet or Abed Nadir from Community.

I felt like I made progress with coming out of my shell once I had gotten to my senior year and yet none of the friends I made were within reach of me when senior year ended and we all graduated. I was left alone and isolated in Westfield. Luckily I did have one really good friend that I was still in touch with. Although he lived in Amherst, MA we kept in close touch and a few years later found an apartment that we would share as roommates, in South Hadley, MA.

My high school experience is well chronicled in a piece of fiction I wrote and self-published, titled “Orien The Arts Scholar”. This long tome is a series of short stories and novellas about a character named Orien Sage from the fantasy world of Promythica, who attends a school called Penhaven Village school for Performing and Arts.

”Orien The Arts Scholar” ends with the novella “Orien’s Jetcar Lessons”. Orien is alone in the cottage that he shares with his father, in an isolated wooded area in the town of Hilliar. School is over and Orien tries to learn to drive a jetcar and connect with his remaining friends to put on a play, but these plans fall through. This begins Orien Sage’s period as a writer and these are the closing lines:

”He had come up with an idea for another performance and he felt very positive at the prospect, because although it might take him ages to learn the skills necessary to conduct performances, it was a simple thing to script them, because all it took was dreaming. All it took was time and solitude and letting his imagination free.”

There are days when I wake up, now, in Westfield, taking a bus to HCC, taking theater and video classes I already took in high school, that I feel like it is all leading to the same place, yet there are blanks to be filled in, such as where I will be living when I move out again and how I will support myself financially. The adult that grew up and moved to South Hadley, Massachusetts became a novelist, but that didn’t pay the bills. I was self-published and didn’t have an audience. What paid the bills was working at Friendly’s and later at local bars. It got to the point that the rent was so high I could only make ends meet by working forty-plus hours a week. We were also under-staffed (which was why I could work that number of hours) and I was overworked. The job was having an affect on my mental health and I needed to quit. In the process of quitting my job and enrolling at HCC, I had to make a sacrifice and move out of my apartment, which was my happy place and not a day goes by when I don’t miss it and wish it were still there waiting for me. 

There’s a poem I wrote in my late twenties that was incorporated into a one-man show I did at the old South Hadley library, that sums up my current feelings: “through a maze I walk/and I’m back here again/no way to talk/and counting to ten/on all my fingers/and loneliness lingers/around me at home/in this cage that I built/where I can’t roam”. I've been going through a creative dry spell lately because whenever I have a strong feeling or emotion I’m only reminded of poems I’ve already written. It seems like I’ve said everything I had to say. All that comes out of me now when I write is reality-reality in the form of essays like this one.

The real driving force and motivation for going to school is to network and make connections. Another reason is to get a degree and to have that on a resume-which would, hopefully, lead me to a job that better suits me. I don’t know what that job or career is though. I’m a theater major and it doesn’t feel like that could lead to a sustainable career. My inner child wanted to be a filmmaker. I already tried to be an author. To live and survive in this world you need financial means. You need to be fed and you need to be housed-but not only that, most importantly, you also need to be happy. I take care of myself and get by, but I do it all on my own. I did it before in restaurants and bars in South Hadley, but where am I going now?

***

Bryan Paul

September 2025

The Cave Boy and the Dancer

 The Cave Boy and the Dancer - A Poem

By 

Bryan Paul

PART ONE

I

From atop a hill lived a boy in a cave,
with mangy black hair and no razor to shave.
He’d sit on a rock and long for a lover.
Just like the girl on the magazine cover.

It’s lonely, you see, in a dark cave at night,
unless you find a hobby to give you light.
The boy gathers treasures from many places-
like books and papers with pictures of faces.

When he is sad at times, he lets a tear fall.
He wipes it away when he looks at his wall.
He dances to music he hears in his head,
with girls in pictures he has pinned by his bed.

But when winter comes and the wind gets too cold,
the boy feels a chill and has no one to hold.
Tears fall more often and he feels lonely still-
(hard not to be sad in a cave on a hill).

II

When spring flowers bloom to bring us elation,
The cave boy steps out of his hibernation,

He runs all the way down to breathe the fresh air,

He runs to the river and washes his hair.

It is at the river that he hears stamping,

And hammering tent poles, setting up camping.

He sneaks through the trees trying not to be seen,

He pokes out to see a girl of about sixteen.

Three girls all share laughter as they talk of tales

Then set out with two boys to explore the trails.

The cave boy curled up at the foot of the tree

Wondering how fun being normal must be.

He drifted off into dreams of dance and song,

He napped just a bit, but he dozed not too long

awakened by music and cheers of delight,

He came out in the open and caused a fright.

III

In the firelight they saw, strange thing he was,

a cave boy with matted black hair and beard fuzz.

The girls all three shrieked while the boys picked up rocks,

Till one girl said “Stop!” as she brushed her curled locks.

Said the gentle young lady, “We’ve frightened him so.” 

She walked over to him and she knelt down low,

She took him by the hand and asked, “care to dance?”

He looked in her eyes and fell into her trance.

It was hard to believe what was happening then,

They danced not just once but once more and again.

They waltzed and they tangoed as the gang joined too,

Around the campfire flame, as the heat grew.

But soon it was late and time to say goodbye,

For the boy to go back to his cave up high,

And let a tear roll on his cheek as he went,

while leaving the dancer asleep in her tent.

PART TWO

IV

Seasons changed and the sun shined brighter,

If he’d known her address-well, then he’d write her!

She was kind to him so and worth thinking of,

He couldn’t help remember she’d shown him love.

For many long nights he’d lay awake in his bed 

With memories of the music still in his head.

Always in his mind, brown hair and so pretty.

He chose to pack up and leave for the city.

He had a knapsack and gathered what he could,

put on his sweatshirt with the zipper and hood,

He trekked down the hill, through the forest by feet,

To the end of the woods, to streets of concrete.

He stuck out his thumb and he hitched for a ride,

Not one person would stop, but still the boy tried.

With thoughts of the girl who would be his lover,

just like the one on the magazine cover.

V

On the road the boy walked and kept on going,

No truck seemed to notice, no car was slowing,

Till then came a bus quite occupied but large,

“ride free today, son,” said the driver, “no charge.”

And so the bus took him, to the big city,

through districts bustling with much activity.

It went down long streets till it came to a stop,

“I’ll let you off right here at the barber shop.”

The boy stood and thought, ‘what a place I’ve been led!’

With a pole by the entrance with stripes of red.

He’d never had a haircut, never before,

He walked up the front steps and opened the door.

The barber looked twice at the hair on his head,

He gave a pondering look and then he said,

“seems as if you must’ve been raised by a bear,”

(which he indeed was, just so that you’re aware).

VI

The boy looked by his feet, where clumps of hair lay

as the barber snipped and clipped and shaved away.

There’d be no more curtains trailing past his knee,

just a breeze up top where it all used to be.

And the worried boy had no money to pay

But the barber, he said, in a kindly way

“I can see by your state you must be quite poor,

I’ll call it even if you help sweep this floor.”

When all was done, said the barber to the boy,

“If looking for work, I’m looking to employ,”

The boy got a job, being useful with a broom,

A place to stay, too, in a small cellar room.

He bought sharp-looking clothes and dressed up real neat,

he went out at night to walk along the street,

but he’d never forget why he left his cave-

for a dancer’s love and the kindness she gave.

PART THREE

VII

For a cave boy who never set foot there before,

The city was full of great things to explore,

But wandering through crowds as the lampposts shone,

Still he felt so small and still so much alone.

He’d line up at the clubs, every one he spied,

But every time he did, he’d always be denied.

“Sorry, no entrance, you’re far too much a runt,”

Said every bouncer once he got to the front.

In sadness, the boy would sit outside and mope,

‘They’ll never let me in,’ he thought without hope-

‘til he spotted a way to sneak in the back,

Found a window that was open just a crack.

He opened it more and he climbed up the wall,

And fell with a crash into a bathroom stall.

But he made it-by gosh, how he took a chance!

Next thing to do was find a lady and dance.

VIII

Out in the open while music was blaring,

Several heads were turned, several more were staring.

He didn’t understand-he thought he looked neat.

He found a stool at the bar and took a seat.

A lady sat sipping wine, red, like a rose,

Her eyes looked him over and up at his clothes

-at his bowtie and jacket with colors clashin’,

And she said, “boy, who taught you about fashion?”

He turned and said, “you look lovely tonight, miss.”

He leaned in to her cheek and gave it a kiss.

Then with a slap his face was red as can be.

Then the bartender said, “Do you have I.D.?”

He was asked to leave and was escorted out-

To sulk and walk back to his cellar to pout.

To shed a tear for his lost dreams of romance

For love he can’t find and no lady to dance.

IX

For a cave boy, the city’s no place to roam,

He packed up and left for the woods he called home.

He said bye to his boss at the barber shop,

And stood outside waiting for the bus to stop.

He rode the bus, followed a trail through the trees,

and settled back in his cave to catch some zees.

Come morning he went to the river to swim,

And he found a brunette teen looking at him.

She stood as he swam to reach her at the shore,

And she took his hand so they could dance once more.

“but I’m ugly,“ he said, “and scrawny don’t you see?”

Said the dancer to the cave boy, “not to me.”