Writing like crazy….

Well, actually thinking like crazy and developing background information to help me advance my understanding of what the hell’s going on in ‘my’ novel. I don’t know if I claim it as much as it has claimed me.

But, as frequently happens with me, this noodling about background sprouts tangent ideas. Writing about another intelligent race (the Milennial) and their complexities (the Lavie (which are their elders) gain weight and lose their limbs, becoming a food source for the larvae), my writing brain comments, “Boy, there’s a terrific short story in that.” Naturally, an argument commences between the novel writer in residence in my brain and the short story writer.

Does this ever happen to you? You’re writing one piece but another suddenly calls and makes an inviting proposition?

Naturally, I said no. The short story writer in me has less traction. I enjoy short stories, love reading and writing them, but I enjoy the novel form more. I tilt toward the novel. So I tell the short story writer, “I appreciate the idea, but we need to stay focused.”

“Come on, it doesn’t need to be long, just twenty-five hundred, maybe five thousand words.”

“I said, no.”

“But it’ll be easy. You can knock it off in a couple days.”

I laugh. Writers are always making such promises. “No.”

Pouting, the short story writer sulks away. “You’ll be sorry someday,” I hear him muttering. “You’ll see.”

The novelist doesn’t let me dwell on that. “Excellent,” he enthuses. “You dispatched him with aplomb. Now, on to the Profemies and the heritage left behind their departure….”