Creator Spotlight - Vanya Bagaev

Writer and overall talented fellow, member of the Soaring Twenties Social Club

Vanya Bagaev is a UK based creative fellow who is a longtime member of the Soaring Twenties Social Club, an online group of interesting and talented people who pursue creative work and creative thinking. Vanya is also the author of Nova Nevedoma, his newsletter.

Among other writing, Vanya is also releasing a novella in installments at Nova Nevedoma. I’ve found Vanya to be a kind and charming fellow as well as a good supporter of How About This so it’s a real pleasure to interview him here.

Here’s Vanya!

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## When you were a teenager, what did you want to become when you grew up?

When I was a kid, I wanted to become a driver of a combine harvester. I lived in a village, and, once a year, in late summer or early autumn, those machines appeared for a week or two and then disappeared until the next harvesting season. Mystery, right? That's always the first thing that surfaces in my mind when I'm asked this question, but, speaking of a bit later years, properly teenage years, I wanted to "do something with computers". I didn't know what exactly, and it didn't matter at that time—just something, whatever that was because I liked (and still do) computers.

## Did you ever find the source of the combine harvesters?  Is it possible to rent one and drive it around?

Eventually, yes. I learned wherefrom they come. In hindsight, I wish it was some sort of UFO-alien-thing harvesting our crops, but that was quite proverbial. They came from a big farm (ex-kolkhoz) or something like that. The rest of the year they stood idle in their garages.  I don't think you can rent one, that's unlikely. Though I heard a rumour that some kids whose relatives were driving combines could sometimes give them a ride! A hot tip: if you find one in Grand Theft Auto, you can drive it through a pedestrian lane and have fun.

## Do you prefer writing by keyboard, do you prefer pen and paper, or do you have another favorite method?

Keyboard 98% of the time, the rest 2% is probably on a phone. My typing is way faster, and my handwriting is really hard to read. The problem is: I learned how to write latin letters in cursive only last year (which was a fun experience). That's the only way I can write using a pen and paper. It feels unnatural to do it in non-cursive because I was taught to do that with Russian letters from an early age. I think it's faster and looks more "writing". However, I still prefer keyboards. It's easier to edit things, move them around, store and share. Handwriting is often enjoyable, good for journaling, and feels "more real"—yes, I can give it that—but I can't write prose this way.

## What's the story of how you came to publish your first short story collection?

I've always wanted to write a book. When I was a kid, I wrote a story (back then it was by hand) about cat spies. I created a cover and assembled it all into a "hardcover" book using notebook pages, carton, threads, glue and other things. Then, I neglected that hobby for a long time, quite a long time, until last year, when I started writing stories again regularly. I tried writing screenplays with my brother a few years prior to that, and it was fun, but it was rather occasional. So, in March 2021 I joined The Soaring Twenties Social Club and started writing essays on Substack, and in October 2021, I switched to short stories and got hooked, this time ultimately. Since then, I've published more than 15 short stories and one novella on Nova Nevedoma. It's been going well, and I feel I'm slowly getting better at it, but I realised that I NEED a tangible, physical, real result of all those efforts made during the past year. I NEED to hold a book I wrote myself in my hands and see how it feels. Yeah, that's the main goal—to find out how it feels, to behold on paper all the words I've written, to smell them, to sense their weight.

## Do you do any writing exercises or other work to further develop your writing skills?

Perhaps I don't do enough to transcend myself to the higher levels of writing craft, but I do no exercises for the exercises sake or anything like that. All I do to develop my writing is simply reading and writing, trying to absorb and create unique things, things I genuinely enjoy.

Regarding the reading part, I try to keep roughly 50-70% of my reading list as books newly discovered by myself, books I've never heard of before adding them to my list. Someone said, you shouldn’t read books written for someone else. So, I am trying to find those exact books that are written for me.  I believe you must explore the deepest and most meandering rabbit holes endeavouring to find the uniquely uniquest, unbeknownst and obscure things, hidden gems that appeal to your innermost self. This way you can develop a unique view on Literature, Art, life, everything; hence—a unique voice and unique ideas as a writer, be idiosyncratic at its best. The reason I'm doing it is just my pathological curiosity. We're lucky the internet allows us that—why would you read or watch or listen (or write) the same thing as everyone else does?

Regarding writing, every time I begin a new story, I try to make it better than before, at least in one aspect. Sometimes I try to do my best with research, sometimes—with plot, sometimes—with details, references, images, sometimes—with prose, sometimes—with dialogue, sometimes—the level of absurd and surreal, sometimes—with other things. I try to explore new things, write something that would surprise at least myself. Thus were born play-like stories, long pointless dialogues, character-less mess, lyrical prosesia pieces, fictionalisations of memes, and other things. If I don't have any particular ideas for experiments when starting a story, I work on improving and polishing the prose: use richer vocabulary, find unusual turns of phrases, "weird" descriptions, better rhythm, et cetera. With short stories, the idea is to take one little thing and make it better than last time, creating yourself a challenge. With longer pieces, like a novella or even a novel, I try to do the same with more components at once. I see the process as a game where the difficulty must always be not too easy and not too hard. If it's too hard, you will procrastinate, languish in the limbo of the endless writer's block, and eventually burn yourself out and capitulate. If it's too easy, it's boring. I don't like doing boring things and wouldn't recommend that to anyone.

## Have you always lived in the UK or did you live elsewhere earlier in your life?  If you moved to the UK why did you move there?

Together with my wife, we moved to the UK about 4 years ago from Russia, where we were born and raised. One reason was a job offer, the other was the political and economic situation. Looking for a job outside of Russia was a result of that, surely. It's been getting worse and worse every year in many aspects, and it became evident that Russia isn't a country where we want to build our future, so we left, as many of our friends did. Now, after Russia has started the criminal war against Ukraine this year, all few desires to go back became nil.

## How exactly did you discover STSC?

I discovered Thomas J Bevan's work before he created STSC. I read his essay The Tyranny of Numbers. I reached him out on Twitter to thank him for his writing, and we started talking occasionally. Then, I became a paid subscriber, supporting his work and, coincidentally, on the same day (or one day after) he created the STSC, which at that moment wasn't even called like that—the title was changing now and then. I can't recall all of them, but the most memorable was The Catacombs, referring to his first Substack essay. I became active in the club, and after a few weeks it became the main place on the internet for me.

## Can you write anywhere or do you need specific conditions for writing?

Considering I "can" write on my phone—though I don't prefer it—yes, I can write anywhere. For editing or translation, for example, environment doesn't matter at all—I can do it literally anywhere in any conditions. Of course, a quiet place (or time) free of distractions where I feel comfortable allows me to concentrate better and write more. It's ideal, but seldom possible. If I were always looking for ideal conditions to write, I wouldn't have written anything.

## Do you have any favourite authors?  Who are they?

It's easier to name books than authors for me, but there are of course writers who I admire the most and who've influenced me both as a person and as a writer. I've read Sasha Sokolov's novel A School For Fools three times over the past twelve months—two times in Russian, one time in English—that says a lot, I believe. Now I'm starting his novel Between Dog And Wolf, which's considered Russian Finnegans Wake by some people. Speaking of Joyce, I do genuinely love Ulysses. Reading it was a big challenge and achievement for me, and I think it changed the way I see Literature. Andrei Bely's Petersburg had a profound effect on me as well—a phenomenal book. I love reading Julian Barnes, Victor Pelevin, Vladimir Sorokin, Alan Moore, Jorge Luis Borges, Anton Chekhov, and a few dramatists like C.P. Taylor and Martin McDonagh, who is, by the way, also my favourite film director and screenwriter.

## Pretend you wake up one morning and you learn that the Internet has been destroyed.  What's the first thing that you do?

That would be a catastrophe, right? :D The world in its wholeness is too dependent on it at this moment. So, I wouldn't believe that happening at first. I would try to check if it's true. If it is, well… we would have breakfast with my wife, as we usually do, go for a walk to think what we do next; we would try to contact our friends and relatives to discuss what they think about it and what they're planning to do.

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Thanks to Vanya for agreeing to be interviewed!