This weekend is the launch of issue eight called Gambit of the journal dotdotdash. I’m pleased to say that I have a short story included called ‘An Existence in Heat’.
I don’t go a lot into the processes involved when it comes to the way I write my offline creative work here on the blog. This is largely because it changes, depending on what I’m writing (poetry, non-fiction, fiction etc.) and on life circumstances at the time. Also, I’m not so sure if it’s a ‘process’ or a ‘fumbling through’. Either way, if this subject is something you’d be more interested in hearing about in the future, do let me know.
I will talk a little about this story today because it was rather experimental: I sat down and turned one very happy memory and one not so pleasant memory into a piece of fiction. I used these seconds of the past my brain has somehow managed to hold on to (and possibly distort, for memory is a dangerous thing as much as it is a blessing at times) as a starting point, similar to what Anne Lamott calls “a one-inch picture frame”. Her point was this kind of localisation can help ease the panic a writer can feel – and I have felt – when feeling the pressure of not knowing where to begin in a story (or a scene, or a chapter…). So when I settled on those two memories, I felt somewhat consoled and the story flowed from there.
It’s also what I’ve been calling my ‘YA Story’. I’m planning an (unrelated) YA novel which I’ll start in the new year and I was developing the kind of voice and tone I’m thinking about using when I’ll be having teenage characters.
This year has been a pretty good one publication wise (two poems, an essay, and now a short story). I think this is because I’m getting a little better at mobilising myself to actually submit to places and also being able to recognise my strengths and work on my weaknesses. Knuckling down and getting actual words onto the page helps too, of course!
