I’m still around. Been busy. Too much stuff has happened recently to even summarize, so I’m just going to give up and move on. Maybe I’ll get back to it later.
I finished a new story that I’m delighted with. A lot of the time, writing a story consists of just sitting your ass in the chair and struggling to add something significant to what you’ve already done, at which point you call it a day and go out for a walk and wonder what the hell you’re going to add to it tomorrow. But then occasionally you get a story that just comes alive and sweeps you away, where everything falls into place, where every scene is a joy to write, where there’s nothing you’d rather be doing, and where every interruption takes on apocalyptic proportions. The last story that really happened with for me was “Seeds-for-Brains” (way back in 2002, geez). This one was another. It was going so well I seriously considered skipping class to work on it, and I did skip bar night. I was also quite prepared to skip both parties I was invited to last night to work on it, but I finished it in the afternoon, so I did make it to one of the parties. (Once I found out the first party had a hot tub I couldn’t drag myself away to go to the second party.)
Note that there’s not necessarily any connection between how powerfully a story seizes the writer and how good it is. Some stories I really struggled with, like “Veil of Ignorance,” are among my best. Others that I loved writing have never seen the light of day. I certainly hope this new story is good, but even if it’s not, just the experience of writing it was awesome.
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