Some stories emerge full flung like Athena from the head of Zeus. Some are born more traditionally—a little bit of labor, but mostly smooth going. And others require you to go in with a set of forceps and wrest the beast, which seems reluctant to emerge.
Today’s accomplishment: 550 words on a story which I have now decided to call The Feast of Stephen. I’m actually pretty proud of this title, as it has dual, if not triple, resonance for the story. Those are my favorite titles, the ones where you can say: on one level it means this, and on another level it means that—and, in particularly rewarding cases, on yet another level it means that.
The 550 words didn’t come easily, though. That’s about half my normal output for a morning’s work. However, they did help reshape the overall story. I had to do a little more sliding around of pieces (see previous entry) and the resulting picture is a little different from what I previously envisioned. What I thought would be a framing device may not survive into the final work, but going through the process of conjuring up the device helped me conceptualize the story. If it does survive, I think it will be far less crucial to the overall story. We’ll see. Like liquid Jell-o, this story hasn’t quite set yet. I don’t think I’ve tackled a story from three different directions in such a short period of time before. I hope the end product will be worth this difficult labor!
If you want to see Clive Barker paint nude men (that is, apply paint to men who are naked), tonight’s the night.
