desperance

I am, as it were, between books: or at least waiting editorial response on a couple of draft projects, and so deadline-free for the moment (I would like to say 'stress-free', but that would inevitably be the occasion for hollow laughter; the best I can say - while I wait for editors to comment - is that I am relatively free of any stress that I can actually do anything about).

So, going into town to post some copies of Phantoms III that generous and perceptive people had ordered (my subtlety, let me show you it), I slung in the Laptop of Heavenly Perfection just in case: the post office is right by the Lit & Phil, and if I slipped in and bought myself a coffee and a biscuit then I was sure to do something, and I have a couple of personal projects unfinished, stories I've been playing with, where it would be good to grab some ground while I can, before the inevitable rewrites...

And on my way to the post office, slouching through Chinatown, I caught myself singing an old song from my childhood, Lord alone knows why; and I thought to myself, "Y'know, self, there's a story in that thar title" (the title and chorus being all that I remember of the song). And I thought about it while we did the posting thing, and by the time I got to the Lit & Phil I had an opening line, a thought to ponder, somewhere to begin; and by the time I left the Lit & Phil I had an opening page. And I already had a market in mind, because no one wants to sell only one story to Nature, obviously; but stories for Nature are a thousand words max, and the last one was born whole and entire in my head whereas this one was looking much more like my normal approach, where I set myself a challenge, build a situation, let the narrative develop and discover an ending when I can. Which is no way to approach a 1K word-limit; that method demands space enough and time.

Still, I had these two things in my head, opening notion and market too; and I thought about it on the way home, and - almost exactly at the same physical point that the first Nature story occurred to me - I figured out what the ending was, and approximately how to get there, and how to do it in more or less three pages. Yay me.

'Course, Nature may not want it, but that doesn't matter so much. I want it, and I may have it by the end of the day. Certainly I can give the rest of the day to it.

Also, I can give you the opening consideration. (And then let you guess the title. Snigger. But I don't believe you will.)

"The war was a terror, but it was the peace that terrified. Like the vast bleak mysteries of adulthood - so much space and empty yet, unmarked by anything of ours - after the battlefield that was school."