Part-time prevaricator
This afternoon, washing dishes and listening to music, I had a writing epiphany. The song “Moment of Clarity” by 13 Engines popped up in the rotation…
…and one part of it, specifically, strikes a chord on my current WiP.
A moment of clarity is all that’s required of me
And all other places and other times, they’re waving goodbye
Goodbye
Yeah, that’s all the context you’re gonna get for now. Let me know if you’re interested in reading this once it’s all done, though.
…a contract and a rejection. So it goes.
The contract is for a Prairie SF short story, one with a CanCon title and an unreliable 3rd-person POV.
The rejection is for a sub-200-word flash piece, and I’m about to send it to its next destination.
Wish me luck!
I hammered out 1,100 words, give or take, in “Summertime in the Void”, which is a new short story about a man left behind by the Singularity.
Here’s a sample, but be kind, it’s first draft material:
His dad, not long before he left, had told John that you can’t ever cross the same river twice, and John had asked why not and his dad had just smiled and told him “You’re smart, figure it out.”
Because the water’s never the same, he decided. Sometimes it’s swift and deep, and sometimes—like now, after a long, hot, dry summer—it was shallow, lazy, and muddy.
I’ve got about 3,900 more words to make this into a coherent story. I think I can make it work.
Since Parallel Prairies II is happening, I figure I should write another short story and see if they’d like it.
Here’s the first line, written on my lunch hour today:
The sun is upside-down but no one believes me.
The working title is “Summertime in the Void”, for extra Cancon points.
A Crash Test Dummies throwback for you today.
“I beg your pardon.
I’m not quite clear about what you just spoke…
Was that a parable, or a very subtle joke?”
Today I learned that…
Dennis Lee, Canadian poet, author of childhood favourite “Alligator Pie”, was also the co-founder of the venerable Canadian press House of Anansi Press (which, even though I’m ill-versed in CanLit, I’d heard of).
And he wrote the lyrics to the theme song for Fraggle Rock.
And he co-wrote the story for the movie Labyrinth.