The Writing Moment
He’d become pretty good at the blurt stage of fiction. This was about writing like crazy, inviting the muses in and plying them with drink, food, and drugs, getting them to open up and share. Volumes are written about every aspect of the novel from the concept to setting, characters, plot, and arcs. He needed to become better at the later stages of editing, revising, and developing a novel.
The Writing Moment
As he edited, he was reading others’ fiction. More than once, reading a chapter or two (they were small chapters) of This Is How You Lose the Time War prompted him to steal back to his computer and resume his editing. It made up a perfect sequence of hours, reading, writing, editing, drinking coffee, and snacking.
The Writing Moment
Although he was still at home, preparing to leave, he’d already shifted into writing mode. His mind’s doors were open to characters. Watching and listening to them like they were people arriving at a conference, he addressed a scene which he’d edited yesterday and barely heard his wife saying something about a news event.
He turned to her as her remark’s tail end registered. “Who?”
She repeated the name and summarized who he was.
He nodded. “Oh. Him. Yes.” He knew exactly who she was talking about. It’s just that he wasn’t really there. It was only his body which was present.
Michael Seidel, writer 