In dire need of finishing energy, I started a short story. To be more precise, I’m aiming to make it a long short story, about the same length as Channel Locked. I am already about halfway through.
(But as I’m writing this and I’m looking at the word count, so far, I think this story will actually become longer than Channel Locked, in which case it might be better to call it a “very short novel” or a “very long short story.” I have found that people often get confused about the term “novella.” It confuses me, too, frankly. Yeah, I don’t know what I would call this thing.)
The longer WIP (a novel) that has been so far codenamed “bs” is going well. It is going to live. By the time this blog post goes live, I will either have shared the actual title on the newsletter, or will be about to share it. But finishing energy is a different thing. The “bs WIP,” even in the best-case scenario, will take a couple more months to finish completely. Meanwhile, this new WIP, if I burn through it (and it really feels like burning through it), will be finished in a couple of weeks. (Complete with Korean translation, etc.)
This one is going to be titled “Way Station 417.” It’s a SF-leaning story.
I say “SF-leaning” reluctantly, because I do not like the pessimism that is prevalent in so much of science fiction, think that the world would be a better place without the so-called science fiction “writer’s organizations,” and also find it weird that things like time/dimensional travel tends to be categorized as SF rather than something else. I wonder who decided that.
Yeah, there is dimensional communication in Way Station 417. Dimensional communication also happened in For Her Ears Only and Log Me Tender, but, again, for a reason that I do not know, some dimensional communication is considered magic (or magic realism) while some are considered “scientific.” Way Station 417 happens on a space way station, so I’m guessing that I’m expected to put it in “science fiction.” But, just saying, that distinction is murky. Is magic realism more realistic than science fiction? No clue.
Anyway, I’m burning through the story, which is possible for a shorter work, but not for longer works–or so I’ve been telling myself. But maybe it’s time to stop telling myself that bullshit story. Perhaps if you read this blog regularly, you might have noticed that I’ve been very pissed at the ugliness of some aspects of the world. If I’m pissed about that anyway, I might as well do more of what I consider beautiful.
Yes, I consider my stories beautiful, and have been feeling more strongly about this, mainly because I realized that I really definitely do not expect people to waste their lives. Read any of my stories, and you will find that none of them end with “And so, life is shit.”