That's what I'm going to start calling short stories now: eensy projects. Because everything I write tends to be about a bajillion words long, so when I actually get something under 8,000 words, it's practically a miniature by comparison. Right now I'm close to finishing up four eensy projects I started at the beginning of the year. One's a rewrite, but I've been writing on the other three steadily since January - a sentence here, a paragraph there, not pushing anything, but just letting the ideas and words come when they did. Maybe it's not the best way to write an eensy, but the payoff is that all of a sudden, I'll have four complete drafts in one month. It's something of a windfall for me, since starting in September, I'll be working exclusively on the novel for the rest of the year.
So, here's a short description of each of the eensy's. Not that I think any of my 3.7 readers are so utterly fascinated by what I'm writing, and I know that reading about other people's WIP's can be painful - think of this only as filler until I get something better to blog about. :)
1) Her Deepness
This is a complete rewrite of a 2500 word dark fantasy I wrote early last year. It's got some nice images, but frankly there's no plot or character arc. All poetry and no emotional narrative makes it kind of dull. So, after much hemming and hawing, I simply chucked everything and started over. I've kept the setting - the Tacoma Mall - and the basic plot - a woman covets a statue of the god Cernnunos in a strange little store, and her acquisition of the piece sets off a chain of events that lead to a violent and erotic encounter with the real god in a sort of alternate version of the mall.
However, I'm doing something a bit odd. I read (on Catherynne M. Valente's Livejournal) that the Journal of Mythic Arts Fall Issue will have the theme of Fantastic Geographies. The journal is invite-only, and I won't be invited, of course. But I'm going to write the story as if I had been invited - I'm using the theme to address my protagonist's issue with the "fantastic geography" of her own body, the unnatural imposed geography of malls versus the natural geography of the non-human world, and the hidden geography of desire and consumption that permeate everything in our consumer-based society. Ok, I might fail. But it'll be a spectacular failure - and a much better story than the first version.
2) Pureland
This is the strangest story I've ever written. It's about transformations and evolutions of all kinds: male into female, young girl into older woman, human into alien, life into death, death into something else. The setting is a sprawling campus in the middle of an oceanside megalopolis - not an Earth setting. This is one of those stories where I have the beginning, and I've always had the ending, but I have no idea what's happening in the middle. That's not a problem, though. I've always trusted that if I have the ending, I'll somehow be able to find my way to it. I write a sentence or two every day, and let the protagonist and very alien setting lead me to the conclusion. I have to say, I love what I've written so far - so much so that I can see taking this character (an older student from another planet studying forensic medicine) and setting her loose in a novel-length work. I have no idea where I'll send this piece when it's finished. I may "crash" an invite-only anthology I've heard of recently, and see if I can get the editor to take a look at it.
FYI, the title and subtitles for each section are taken from origami folds - such as "water bomb base", "mountain fold", "closed unsink" ("pureland" is a simplistic and pared-down style of origami). If I had the money, I'd commission an origami artist to create a piece and sell me the actual instructions, which I'd insert into the text as the subtitles. Then, you could actually use the subtitle instructions to make something. It would be a paper girl, transforming into something vast and strange and beautiful...
3) When We Get On the Inside
This is the slightly feminist social-science fiction story I started a week or so back, for the mundane SF issue of Interzone, and it's coming along in fits and starts. Right now I have a good sense of the protagonist and her journey, but I'm struggling to make sure the issues don't overshadow her story. Essentially the plot is mothers with children vs. women without children - who is more entitled to call themselves a woman depending on if they've pulled a human being out of their vagina or not, and who is therefore more entitled to goods and services and basic rights in this slightly-in-the-future society. Unfortunately, that sounds very boring, and more than a little strident and angry - which is not what I want. I want to write a story, not a diatribe. I may miss the deadline on this one, but I'm not going to fret about it. I can always submit it at a later date, to one of the regular Interzone issues. The important thing is to get it right.
4) Shang Hai
Last December I dashed off a terrible, terrible 2000 word story for an erotic anthology. Thank the gods above it was rejected - it was truly horrific. I completely threw it away - deleted the files, shredded the pages. It doesn't exist anymore. This version has the same title and setting, and it's still erotica, but it's completely new. I'm now writing the story from the POV of a man - a first for me. It's about the leader of a press gang in late 1800's Tacoma, a young con man who kidnaps loggers and gamblers, getting them dead-drunk, stripping them of cash and clothes, then transporting them through the underground tunnels of the waterfront to Orient-bound ships, where they're sold as galley-slaves. Of course the tables turn on him - that'll be no shock to any reader, but it's how the tables are turned that's going to be a bit unique.
My only problem with this story is that the young man is racist and misogynistic, as were many men in Tacoma toward the Chinese during this period in history, and I've been worried that my protagonist's atrocious attitudes and behavior to women and minorities will somehow be seen by readers as my own personal ignorance/racism. People may not be willing to read to the end to see him get his comeuppance. I'll finish the story, but I may end up trunking it. Or it'll go in some erotic collection someday, when I'm well-known enough to get one published. Yeah, right. :P
So, here's a short description of each of the eensy's. Not that I think any of my 3.7 readers are so utterly fascinated by what I'm writing, and I know that reading about other people's WIP's can be painful - think of this only as filler until I get something better to blog about. :)
1) Her Deepness
This is a complete rewrite of a 2500 word dark fantasy I wrote early last year. It's got some nice images, but frankly there's no plot or character arc. All poetry and no emotional narrative makes it kind of dull. So, after much hemming and hawing, I simply chucked everything and started over. I've kept the setting - the Tacoma Mall - and the basic plot - a woman covets a statue of the god Cernnunos in a strange little store, and her acquisition of the piece sets off a chain of events that lead to a violent and erotic encounter with the real god in a sort of alternate version of the mall.
However, I'm doing something a bit odd. I read (on Catherynne M. Valente's Livejournal) that the Journal of Mythic Arts Fall Issue will have the theme of Fantastic Geographies. The journal is invite-only, and I won't be invited, of course. But I'm going to write the story as if I had been invited - I'm using the theme to address my protagonist's issue with the "fantastic geography" of her own body, the unnatural imposed geography of malls versus the natural geography of the non-human world, and the hidden geography of desire and consumption that permeate everything in our consumer-based society. Ok, I might fail. But it'll be a spectacular failure - and a much better story than the first version.
2) Pureland
This is the strangest story I've ever written. It's about transformations and evolutions of all kinds: male into female, young girl into older woman, human into alien, life into death, death into something else. The setting is a sprawling campus in the middle of an oceanside megalopolis - not an Earth setting. This is one of those stories where I have the beginning, and I've always had the ending, but I have no idea what's happening in the middle. That's not a problem, though. I've always trusted that if I have the ending, I'll somehow be able to find my way to it. I write a sentence or two every day, and let the protagonist and very alien setting lead me to the conclusion. I have to say, I love what I've written so far - so much so that I can see taking this character (an older student from another planet studying forensic medicine) and setting her loose in a novel-length work. I have no idea where I'll send this piece when it's finished. I may "crash" an invite-only anthology I've heard of recently, and see if I can get the editor to take a look at it.
FYI, the title and subtitles for each section are taken from origami folds - such as "water bomb base", "mountain fold", "closed unsink" ("pureland" is a simplistic and pared-down style of origami). If I had the money, I'd commission an origami artist to create a piece and sell me the actual instructions, which I'd insert into the text as the subtitles. Then, you could actually use the subtitle instructions to make something. It would be a paper girl, transforming into something vast and strange and beautiful...
3) When We Get On the Inside
This is the slightly feminist social-science fiction story I started a week or so back, for the mundane SF issue of Interzone, and it's coming along in fits and starts. Right now I have a good sense of the protagonist and her journey, but I'm struggling to make sure the issues don't overshadow her story. Essentially the plot is mothers with children vs. women without children - who is more entitled to call themselves a woman depending on if they've pulled a human being out of their vagina or not, and who is therefore more entitled to goods and services and basic rights in this slightly-in-the-future society. Unfortunately, that sounds very boring, and more than a little strident and angry - which is not what I want. I want to write a story, not a diatribe. I may miss the deadline on this one, but I'm not going to fret about it. I can always submit it at a later date, to one of the regular Interzone issues. The important thing is to get it right.
4) Shang Hai
Last December I dashed off a terrible, terrible 2000 word story for an erotic anthology. Thank the gods above it was rejected - it was truly horrific. I completely threw it away - deleted the files, shredded the pages. It doesn't exist anymore. This version has the same title and setting, and it's still erotica, but it's completely new. I'm now writing the story from the POV of a man - a first for me. It's about the leader of a press gang in late 1800's Tacoma, a young con man who kidnaps loggers and gamblers, getting them dead-drunk, stripping them of cash and clothes, then transporting them through the underground tunnels of the waterfront to Orient-bound ships, where they're sold as galley-slaves. Of course the tables turn on him - that'll be no shock to any reader, but it's how the tables are turned that's going to be a bit unique.
My only problem with this story is that the young man is racist and misogynistic, as were many men in Tacoma toward the Chinese during this period in history, and I've been worried that my protagonist's atrocious attitudes and behavior to women and minorities will somehow be seen by readers as my own personal ignorance/racism. People may not be willing to read to the end to see him get his comeuppance. I'll finish the story, but I may end up trunking it. Or it'll go in some erotic collection someday, when I'm well-known enough to get one published. Yeah, right. :P
Labels: short stories
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