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desayunoencamaOn Tuesday I wrote a 3200 word story, which left me feeling creatively hungover yesterday. I hate getting caught up against the deadline like that (technically I was 4 hours late in delivering it, or maybe less since there's a time difference between Madrid and Madeira and they're earlier), although in some ways the deadline is the only thing that helps me focus/concentrate enough to do the required writing.
It was an interesting request, for a commemorative anthology celebrating the 500th anniversary of Funchal, the capital of Madeira; the book features stories specifically about the railway which operated from 1893 to 1943 and ran from the port of Funchal up to Monte, and which was popular with tourists and visitors, which included such notables as Jules Verne, Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway, Winston Churchill, and John dos Passos, all of whom wrote about the island.
My story is no doubt very unusual, although I don't know how to talk about it in a way that isn't spoilerish, since the piece is basically slowly revealing more and more details about a secret smuggling that the train is being used for, and it is only at the end of the story that it is explicitly explained why this elaborate system and its secrecy was necessary.
I don't think the story is abusive in the author-reader relationship, that is, I hope that while it is mysterious the reader does not feel cheated because I (the author) am withholding information, but rather the story reveals the information slowly, with some readers (depending on their own backgrounds or preconceptions) catching on much quicker than others.
It's good to flex the fiction muscles again, since I hadn't written a short story in quite some time, and the few other recent starts I've made have all been stillborn.
It was an interesting request, for a commemorative anthology celebrating the 500th anniversary of Funchal, the capital of Madeira; the book features stories specifically about the railway which operated from 1893 to 1943 and ran from the port of Funchal up to Monte, and which was popular with tourists and visitors, which included such notables as Jules Verne, Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway, Winston Churchill, and John dos Passos, all of whom wrote about the island.
My story is no doubt very unusual, although I don't know how to talk about it in a way that isn't spoilerish, since the piece is basically slowly revealing more and more details about a secret smuggling that the train is being used for, and it is only at the end of the story that it is explicitly explained why this elaborate system and its secrecy was necessary.
I don't think the story is abusive in the author-reader relationship, that is, I hope that while it is mysterious the reader does not feel cheated because I (the author) am withholding information, but rather the story reveals the information slowly, with some readers (depending on their own backgrounds or preconceptions) catching on much quicker than others.
It's good to flex the fiction muscles again, since I hadn't written a short story in quite some time, and the few other recent starts I've made have all been stillborn.
