Air and Nothingness' new anthology opens for submissions today. Are you going to send something? I can say that I am working on something. I think I will be able to finish it in the time allotted- although it's a little more ... ambitious ?? maybe than anything I've attempted before. Kind of space operatic, and as much as I love space opera, it's not something I've really tried to write before. But I have a pretty cool alien organism and setting and even a way to fit the spiritualism aspect in, so. Just do my best, right? 

I've been running again, back up to 10 kms now. I've found that running that distance is pretty consistently reliable for activating the really good creative mindflow that happens sometimes, where you're not fighting it, where the words just come. You can see the story, and how it needs to be written. I wish that could be done with just having a second cup of coffee, and very occasionally it does- but not in any predictable  or reliable way. And so I run. Urg! No, it's good. It's got all the benefits right? It's just so hard. Like writing. Urg!

I wrote a story earlier this year for an open call that didn't get picked up. It was for the theme of Industrial Revolution. Industry is a thing I know about, right? And my mind was kind of thinking about the River Styx and Charon because of Megaflora, so I wrote a story about the Styx and stuff. It was fun to write, and I think successful, and it was about a very specific thing- should I talk about a story that is unpublished and unavailable? I see how that isn't the most useful thing to read about. Hmm. Well, you can always stop reading right? No trouble at all. Ok, I will keep writing about this. I guess spoiler alert for a story you have no way (currently) to read. 

The theme of this story is very easy- it can be boiled down to a thesis statement: progress should have cured death but instead it optimized killing. I even say that right in the text at the end, disguised as poetry. I bring this up because it's useful to have such a thesis for a story, it points you where to go and how to write it, but sometimes I don't always have a theme, or at least something that can be said in one simple statement. This current story, doesn't have that. But it does have a central big theme. It's just too big! How to boil it down. Or how to figure out if it needs to be boiled down, or is just asking some big questions ok? I know the answer to that one. Urg! The answer is the same as it always is- write the damn story and then rewrite it so it's good. Sometimes I wish it was just easier! 

Urg!!!