Musings from the Mascarade

Complexity

I finally completed rewrites on Singularity, my novel-in-progress, after nearly 3 weeks of intensive effort. The beta reads I received before Christmas were helpful, and it feels good to have what my "magnum opus" (to date) coming alive. It's definitely better than it was. I felt invincible as I hit the "Save" button and thought "I'm killing it! Now time to move back to short stories."

Then I looked at my fiction journal, and came back down to Earth. In the past year, I've written three viable stories, and two of those are questionable.

Crap!

It still confounds me that I can write novels naturally, but I struggle with short stories. Then again, this seems to be a theme in my life. I can cook a mean macaroni and cheese casserole, but my green bean casserole is marginal. I have two happy, healthy parrots, and two withering houseplants. The retirement accounts are growing impressively, the daily checking account not so much. In school, I excelled at math and science and stunk at history, which is nothing but rote memorization.

Go figure.

I guess I drift toward complexity. Or at least, I work harder at it. I do focus on novels (and my parrots, and that mac & cheese casserole) more. Maybe my short stories would improve if I gave them the same attention as I give the novels. I thought I did, but apparently I don't.

I'm not giving up. That is, after all, why I'm here: to grow and improve at the shorter forms.

But those houseplants might be doomed. Parrots literally call for attention. Plants do not.

Happy Friday!


Sherri F. Moorer
https://www.amazon.com/Sherri-Fulmer-Moorer/e/B005G5DW9U
http://www.sherrithewriter.com/