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Those of you who have been with this blog from the beginning know that I only promise to post twice a week, on Fridays and Mondays. I've been on such a roll this past year, however, posting almost every weekday, that my prolonged silence must look a little ominous.The truth is rather disappointingly simple. I've been working on a short story, "For I Have Lain Me Down on the Stone of Loneliness and I'll Not Be Back Again." I began this story years ago, but it stalled out and I set it aside to age. Periodically, I'd pick it up and give it another try, to little effect. Then on Tuesday I started working on it and the plot tangles spontaneously unknotted and the structural difficulties all solved themselves. So I've been working on and thinking about nothing else ever since.
But why -- I hear you ask -- such an ungodly long title? Well, aside from the fact that it suits the story perfectly, I have of late grown impatient with the unvaryingly short and polite titles that are the fashion today. The latest Asimov's, for example, has three one-word titles, a pair of two-word titles, and Gwendolyn Clare's "Ashes on the Water." (Haven't read it yet, but I presume it's great.) It's been a long time since such gorgeous monsters as "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" and "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" walked the earth. So I'm doing my little bit "to rectify the regime," as they say on Korean historical TV series.
When I stalled out on the story, it was called "The Stone of Loneliness." I can't help suspecting that was part of the problem.
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How does it feel for a difficult plot to finally untangle itself after years in knots? That's got, at least, to be worth a meal at you favorite Mexican restaurant or a nice cold something or other. Congratulations on your recent untanglement.
ReplyDeleteYour mention of HE's classic made me think of "With the Bentfin Boomer Boys in Little Old New Alabama" by Richard Lupoff in A.DV. A great novella as I recall. I have to read it again and the rest of Ellison's testament.
ReplyDeleteI can think of a few of your stories that would have graced TLDV. The first one that came to mind was "The Bordello in Fairie", but then "Radiant Doors", "Urdemheim", "Wild Minds", "The Dead", "Radio Waves", etc. chimed in and other stories of yours are clamoring for attention.
Great news about your latest story!
> It's been a long time since such gorgeous monsters as "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" and "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" walked the earth.
ReplyDelete"The beast that shouted love at the heart of the world"
"And I awoke and found me here on the cold hill side"
"If all men were brothers would you let one marry your sister"
"The groaning hinges of the world"
and the best title *ever*:
"Love is the plan, the plan is death"
Was a time they were giving titles like those away. But kids these days...
"Golden the Ship Was -- Oh! Oh! Oh!"
ReplyDelete"The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal"
"We in Some Strange Power's Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line"