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Yes, the short story is late.  Apparently, I'm still not well enough to be able to predict when/whether I'll be able to finish a piece of writing.  It's frustrating, but it's not too badly overdue yet, and so far, the anthology editors are holding strain (i.e. waiting for me).  I've just printed out what I have so far.  I'm re-reading it, making notes right on the manuscript, and literally cutting it up, moving sections around, and attaching them together with sticky tape.

This is an anthology for which I've wanted to write a story for a long time, so I hope hope hope that I get it done.

Wrote about 1,600 words today in a short story I'm tentatively calling, "Ours Is the Prettiest".  I was in the subway train on the trek back home from visiting my mother.  I get travel-sick if I try to read or write in a moving vehicle, so I ruminated instead.  And some of the most knotty plot problems in the story began to unravel.  I began the rewrite as soon as I got home.  I think I know where the story's going now. Or how, rather; some of the "where" is still vague.  Good timing, too.  The story's due in 8 days.  My ability to produce writing on schedule is still way chancy post Anaemia Hell, but I really hope I can get this one done on time.  I decided not to post an excerpt here from this draft.  For a short story, it felt as though it might reveal too much.

Using my stitch-ripper of justice to remedy egregious acts of sartorial aggression that had been committed on two cotton sweaters I just bought. I just have this notion that a heavy cotton cardigan generally shouldn't clank when it moves. (Thin, bendy aluminium circles sewn onto a heavy black sweater all the way around the hips, with one each at the back of the wrist for good measure.) Or have bits of thin, cutesy bandana cotton appliqued onto it in random places with thin, flimsy buttons in the shape of turtles sewn onto the applique just in case, you know, there wasn't enough embellishment encrusting the poor thing.

Novel-in-progress Taint: 673 words before breakfast.

It's ten minutes of one a.m., the short story is flowing like gravelly mud in winter, and I'm on the same page in the novel that I was on this morning, with virtually nothing changed.  Yep, it's the perfect time to decide that the kitchen floor needs to be swept right this minute.  And maybe mopped, too.

BACKGROUND: on Tuesday, January 12, 2010, the island of Haiti experienced a devastating earthquake. The destruction and loss of life is horrible. Haiti needs help. Below I've posted one of my short stories. Feel free to read it, and if you're so moved, to use the link at the end of the story to send a donation to Haiti.

HERBAL

By Nalo Hopkinson

A fiction fundraiser for

2010 Haitian earthquake relief

(Donation button at the end of the story; please donate if you can.)

Herbal by Nalo Hopkinson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License

Chopping my way through the underbrush of a short story in progress.  I have the vaguest notion of what I might want it to be about, and where some of the plot reversals might be, but I'm figuring out specifics through writing it.  And erasing bits.  And rewriting them.  And moving paragraphs around.  And taking breaks for breakfast and cleanup.  And looking up specifics of the shared world for which I'm writing the story.  And getting distracted by a million and one other things that need doing or are just fun to do.

A comment from someone this morning got me thinking about teaching aspiring writers.  I've been doing so off and on for probably more than a decade now, usually in a program that has a specific length, during which the intention is for the student to improve upon their writing skills by practising them over the course of the term with the guidance of an instructor.

Sometimes people will begin the term with a novel already written, or substantially written.  Sometimes those people will ask me whether they can just send me the whole novel on the first day of term.   I generally say no, and ask them to just send me an excerpt, as the other students are doing.

Good news; thanks to the organizers of Readercon, an excellent annual science fiction and fantasy convention just outside the Boston area (MA, USA), I can offer two $500 scholarships (i.e. discounts) for my February 2010 mentorships. I'm going to reserve these for people who are in need of the discount.  If that's you, just tell me about it when you apply.  If I get more than two requests, I'll have to make some hard decisions, but it's so nice to be able to offer the possibility of a discount at all!  Thanks, Readercon!

Book Bench, the blog of the New Yorker, interviewed me a couple of days ago.  You can read it here.