A Slump, a Slog, and a Success-in-progress
Stories read in no particular order:
- "The Little Goddess" by Ian McDonald from Asimov's (2005)
- "National Dish" by Thomas Mixon from Short Story Long (2025)
- "I have no Mouth, and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison from IF: Worlds of Science Fiction (1967)
"Life gets in the way of work" ~ a very compassionate former boss of mine.
This was my wife's week off of work, a week where we had all five kids in the house and her father came to stay with us. Naturally, my time was occupied with something other than reading. I went four whole days without cracking open novel nor audiobook, even!
Excuses aside, I found "The Little Goddess" to be a bit of a slog. It was a very pretty story (without any pretenses at trying to be) and by the end I quite enjoyed it, but I can't help but think that I would have structured it differently, maybe played with flashbacks. The first half of the novella barely registered as science fiction and I'm not usually the one to be a cop about that kind of thing.
A friend in my writing group had a story in Short Story Long! So I had to make time to read that and Thomas didn't disappoint. I texted him and said that it was like Harrison Bergeron in a wild angle lens. I should reread it and see if it's school appropriate (my least favorite kind of reading), because coming up with a paired lesson plan would be cool.
And finally, there was the Ellison classic. I confessed to a student that I hadn't read it and they yeeted a collection at me. I see what the hype was about. Also, Jesus!
As for my own work, I'm collecting rejections and spend last week struggling to settle on which short story I was actually interested in working on. I bounced around between 4 or 5 and eventually went back to something that is NOT a short story. Short Story Summer, how I have betrayed thee! But more important than this lark is that I'm writing and if it takes a big idea to get me passionate, then so be it. I'm 8,000 words deep into whatever this is and actually having fun with it. Still, I want to try to finish a first draft of something this week and maybe put a new draft on another finished story (I already have one in mind and already got feedback on it).