Don’t look at me, I didn’t buy him the eyeliner…
So last week I started working on a story about a man with a birdcage full or sparrows instead in of a heart and the question of what happens when you swap out the sparrows for something else. It ends badly (because it’s one of my stories and they almost always end badly), and there is heartbreak (’cause, again, I’m writing it…), and last night I finally hit the end of the draft and said “oh, well, that’s done.” It’s not a terribly good story yet, and may never be, but there is rewriting to correct that problem should I decide it has the seed of a good story in there. The important thing is that it’s done, because that’s how The Fear is combated – you crush it beneath the weight of endlessly finished drafts until it gives up and goes away. And because I was the model of writerly virtue yesterday, I’m going to go collect mail this morning.