nonionay | In which I'm self-congratulatory

Way back when, I read the Star Wars novelization. I loved it, partly because it had some weird stuff the movie didn't. For instance, in the novel, strange mists rose on Tattooine at dawn. Scientists came up with rationalizations, but no one really understood. It had absolutely nothing to do with anything, but it always stuck with me.

The first thing I ever wrote was inspired by that. I got the "OMG, I have to write," fever, and wrote a short story about a girl who found a siren in a rapidly-shrinking pool on a desert planet, and was told stories of the ghosts of the siren's sisters that haunted the sands. The idea was, the mists were the ghosts, and if a siren's story was told, then her soul could rest. I figured I'd write a bunch of stories with that as the framing device. I've got a poem about a dead mermaid, but that's as far as I ever got. For years, that was my one and only short story.

Now, I've written two short stories in almost as many weeks. On command, even. Go me!

So, a big thank you to all of you who convinced me to push myself onward.