by uzwi
Writing will wreck you if you let it. The maze is inhabited. Though you need to discover what’s down there, every serious kind of writing life is a way of controlling your contact with it. Never give yourself up to the maze, much less what lives there. The way to stay safe is to keep them both at a distance. Observe the precautions. Make sure you finish at the end of the day. Make sure the fixed lines are in good repair. Make sure you have a real life to go back to. Make sure you remain an explorer. Don’t sleep there.
Sorry to drop in with a mad and random question. I was looking at the list of stories selected for the new collection and thought ‘wot, no ‘Empty’?’* Anyhow, I’ve always wanted to ask, but have always been too shy – there’s a line from that story: ‘You force the rest of us to live in the real world so you don’t have to’ – did someone say that to you at some point and you stashed it away, or did it flow from within?
It’s such a great line.
I hope your recent novel is doing well. It’s going down a real treat here.
* it’s probably in there, I just missed it.
Hi Chris E: That line came from looking for a way to sum up the kind of male character being described. I’d been developing him since “The Ice Monkey”, and “Empty” was one of his final outings, though I didn’t finish with him entirely until Signs of Life. When people think he has approval from the author, I often point them to that line. The text knows exactly who he is, and so does Annie. Glad you like it, anyway. It’s nice to have a reader who gets it. Sorry that the story didn’t make the cut for Settling the World. We had page limits.