I left Holographic Moon today and went back to Mirror Box.
That was a good idea. That story stalled out on me when I realized that I'd filled up most of the space that is reasonable for a short story (I was over 5000 words on it, with the end a ways away), with material that didn't do at all what the concept needed. Going back today, I moved nearly half what I had into a slush file and restarted at the last point I felt some degree of confidence in. The new stuff is much more effective and exciting for me to look back at.
There is a funny feeling that is starting to happen. A weird sort resignation to the material. There is little doubt anymore that writing these stories is going to be hard on me--the vulnerability that is called for, the willingness to try and fail and accept it and try again, other things--but I feel increasingly called to sit for longer amounts of time. Its a matter of immersion, and of pushing myself into the mind states of the characters. More than that, pushing myself into the very language the concepts require. Its like dancing, but more exhausting. And yet I feel compelled...
Part of it is the increasing of synchronicities all around me. Some of these are related to my material, and seeing direct relations between concepts and characters corresponding to things in the world around me. Those could be chalked up to my material being near the top of my recent memory, causing my mind to pattern my experiences onto the stories I'm fooling with. But its more than simple things and chance meetings; the whole world around me seems to be changing, and me with it.
I can't help thinking of butterflies cramping in cocoons, pushing out into a world they'd witnessed before in another form but now equipped to move and interact with it in a whole new way.
It might behoove me to speak with Artemis again soon...
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