Unwrapping the Stories

This was supposed to come out yesterday but I ran out of time while in the office. (Sorry Jonas!)

Yes, I blog while in the office. Don't you?

I'm kind of semi-happy with my writing nowadays: editing one short into some semblance of a good story and another brief piece into a short short story. For a while, you see, my writing had stalled for one thing or another. Hopefully, I can bounce these off into the wide wide world afterwards.

Moreover, this 15-minute writing is fun in the sense in that it gives my ideas some solidity. If it works, then it works-- like drinking a refreshing cold glass of water on a hot summer day. It gives you that kind of self-fulfillment, that everything is alright in the world. (Yes, a cold glass of water sometimes does that for me.)

The trick now is expanding the piece into a proper short story or even a short short story. For example, I'm trying to see where the story of 'Logovore' would lead me. (Of course, it took me a while to convince myself that a 500-word piece wouldn't cut it if I submit it somewhere like Strange Horizons despite their reassurance in accepting short short stories.)

The problem in expanding such a story like this is the fact that when I'm writing a 15-minute piece, I try as much as possible in creating an enclosed world within that story. So when I try to expand it, it's like trying pop open a bubble-- a rather resistant bubble skin at that.

Picture it this way: imagine a suman latik. The sweetened rice native delicacy is wrapped carefully in banana leaves in such a way that the tough leaves protect the suman from getting dirty, kind of like a plastic sandwich wrapper. Expanding the 15-minute story is like that: you have to figure out how to open the wrapper before you can get to the delicacy inside.

So in the case of 'Logovore', I have to figure out what the Word-Eater is doing in that pub with his friends, what is he all about, where is he going in the expanded storyline, and what the ending will be.

But that's easier said than done. Ah well.... (Just in case you're wondering, yes, it's that time of the week!)