Today I took a break from 124,000 word epics to submit a new short story for consideration. I’ve ignored short fiction in recent years, so writing the piece was an uncomfortable experiment in stretching atrophied muscles.
That said, I’m rather pleased with the final result. It’s an emotive tale about a young teen boy, his mother, and their struggle for survival in a dystopian future world. Not much happens – he chops some wood and thinks about the chores ahead for the day while reminiscing about what happened to the world and how they ended up where they are – but I think it’s a more compelling tale than that summary leads you to believe. In any case, it felt good to step outside my self-imposed box for a few hours.
Now, BACK TO THE BOX. The next chapters of this epic fantasy saga will not, in fact, write themselves. Believe me, I’ve asked. They told me to pound sand and then stole my lunch money.
Or maybe I rewrote the same chapter three times to get it right and then ascribed annoying, human traits to my disjointed creative process so I could be angry at someone other than myself.
One of those.
In any case – time to get back to it. Tally ho!
M.R. Kistler 