A Day in the Life

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There are all kinds of interesting projects simmering away on a variety of metaphoric stoves. None of which I can talk about yet. So I'm forced to fall back on What I'm Doing Today.

Not much, as it turns out. Some time ago, I wrote a story called "Sparks and Embers," which I had decided was not a success and put it aside. This morning, I picked it up, changed the title to "Artificial People," did a light rewrite of the text, and gave it a new ending.

The result? Much better. Eminently publishable. Not one of my best.

Life is too short to waste on a story that isn't one of my best. So back into the pile mulching away on my desk it goes. I'll pick it up again sometime and see if I can make it sing. Until then, it simply must wait.

This is the glamorous, excitement-packed life of a working writer.


And from the Image Book . . .

Not a lot to be said about today's images. The typewriter is a reminder that artifice and lying are thematic to the novel. The murky figures, possibly drowned, are an evocation of the fast that Faerie is, in many ways, an inversion of our own world--which its inhabitants call Aerth.

Only five more of these to go, by the way.

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