Last night I had a "Drink 'n' Bitch" session in Manhattan with Robert Levy (if you can't figure out what we did, then you're beyond all hope :P). Among other things, we talked about my upcoming novel - and in the throws of a beery passion, I spun an old tale from my teenage years that's the inspiration for both the setting and the core emotional arc of the characters. After I finished telling the tale, Robert was all "OMG THIS IS YOUR FIRST CHAPTER, BEYOTCH!" and I was all "OMG UR RIGHT!" and then he was all "BUT OMG IT'S ALSO A SHORT STORY THAT YOU WILL SUBMIT AND GET PUBLISHED WHILST UR WRITING THE NOVEL!" and I was all "OMG U HAVE BLOWN! MY! MIND!"

And yes, we totally talked in all caps. Also, I talked a lot about literary fiction with genre elephants. You know - various elephants of genre. :P It was a fun evening.

So, I'm writing the story-slash-chapter this weekend, and hope to send it out by the end of the month. It's called "Discrimen". Below is a definition of the title, which is also a perfect description of what the story-slash-chapter is about (with a dash of resistentialism thrown in). You know, I've had that word sitting in a file for about three years now. I always knew it'd come in handy someday. Never throw anything away.

Discrimen is "...what the Romans called the moment of perilous and excruciating or exhilarating tension, the moment before everything changes because of this one experience. It never is that powerful again, but that one experience is so profoundly effective that it not only starts one down a specific life path, but it imbues the life and subsequent work with remembered power from the experience - power that it did not have on its own."

Labels: "the ruins of love", discrimen