Yesterday could not have been a more appropriate conclusion to a very productive week.

This, safe to say, was the best Short Story Saturday I’ve had in a long time.  Not only did I finish a story, not only was that a story I’d started mere days ago, but I also managed to work on an additional project that had languished for far too long.

Here’s what I worked on this week:

Here with Me

Wow.  What began as a fairly simple romance story ultimately developed into something far more interesting, far more relevant, and I couldn’t be happier to see where it led me.

As it turned out, this story became one about the changing nature of identity in our world, and the emerging struggle to define ourselves as individuals while barriers are broken down.  As our world shrinks, as telecommunication and emerging transportation technologies draw us closer together, the kinds of distinctions we use to set ourselves apart (racial, ethnic, religious, regional) will slowly erode.  In time, it may be that one of the first, most important tasks we face will be establishing an identity for ourselves; finding out who we are.

In a way, this story painted a very real picture of what love, relationships, and simply being human might look like roughly 70 years into the future.  And it’s one I hope my readers will enjoy.

I Am 1

I have read over all I have of this story, in its entirety, no less than four times in the past three months.  Yesterday I sat down and hammered out a page and a half of story.  It’s amazing how things can change in so short a time.

My work on I Am 1 yesterday focused on getting into the head of my protagonist. Specifically, I focused on the inner conflict between his sense of longing for companionship, for another being like himself, one who shared his horrific experience of being a laboratory test subject, and the lingering fear of being exposed as not being human.

Ultimately, the plan is for the entire story to end with a clandestine meeting in a darkened warehouse, which turns out to be a trap.  But all things in time, as they say.

Submissions

I’ve been saying it for a while, but this week I hope to finally send out another round of submissions.  I feel I keep inching closer and closer to publication, so perhaps this round will do it.  In particular, I intend to finally submit my reworked (and re-edited) manuscript of Going Dark to Escape Pod.  Wish me luck.

It feels good to be writing again, dreamers.  It’s been a long week of writing, but I’m still going to try to get the Reading Day post out before the end of the night.  Until then, as always, dare to dream. – MK