Work I Might Share

 

In the Summer 2020 term, I took "Short Story Workshop," producing even more work you'll probably never see. In this class, we had to write a 3-page shortie, then four 10-20 page stories. Here I learned that my "style" is fairly formal and it was work to break out of that. Fortunately, my humor was able to show through even when out of my comfort zone (as well as my seriousness). 

My stronger pieces were "The Boy Who Couldn't" and "Paradox Solved," both described at times Kafka-esque. Color me flattered! I was extremely disappointed in "Alone at Last," which was meant to be something of a ghost story, but I felt fell far, far short.

My best piece from this class was "Things Don't Always Suck." You may remember this as a comic short from nearly twenty years ago! I'd always loved the characters and the premise--three roommates who all were experiencing a personal set-back, and each envious of what the others had--but never was satisfied with my comic story. 

This version took the characters, some of the moments from the comic short, but recast it in a way that gave the story so much better form, shape, and detail than it had as a comic. In large part, if the comic was draft two, then the final short story would have been draft five or six. A great lesson to revise and rewrite. It was delightful to revisit Jon-o, Nate, and Dascomb, (Marnie, too... she was the most fun to write) and in a way to be a bit proud of!