by Matthew DiVito
Well, that's like a quarter of a year, isn't it?
So if I do that three more times, that'll be goal met -- one year of continuous weekday writing.
When I began Ehaema, it was intended to be microfiction - just bursts of imagery, whatever was in my head at the time, with no necessary or explicit connection between one day's work and the next. The brevity of each piece was meant to make it so that I had no excuse NOT to do it - I can always write a paragraph, anyone can.
However, just organically, it evolved into serial fiction. Because sometimes I need to write more than a paragraph or two to fully express a thought - and that thought remains in my head the next day, with more to say. So I use the momentum from one piece to carry me forward - and thus they connect thematically. And shortly after that, their narratives begin to overlap. And then they're all part of the same story.
So it is to be one-from-many, then. It's a bunch of stories, covering the same events but told differently from everyone's different point of view, and they overlap. That's how awareness evolves - first you know events, then you understand that they connect, and the connective tissue forms the story of your life. And then, if you're brave, you begin to understand that yours is only one story in a world of other people's stories that look different, have different characters and senses of humor and recurring themes. No two are alike. None is intrinsically better or worse, though you might prefer to see more of some, and less of others - and you work to make more of the stories you like better, and that is what it is to operate in this world. Your world. Our world. So remember to be a good character in whomever's story you're in today.
I already have ideas for what the next project will be - so many! There is the story of the Snow Queen and her handservant Sorrow, and the boy who guides them through the Aftercity. There is the story of an anarchist group of warriors and low mages struggling to stay alive in a post-fantasy kingdom ruled by angelic virtual entities. There are the thousand ghost tales of Chueh'yin the Moth Prince. There is the one that takes place in one short episode a day in real-time, also told over the course of a year. There is Transit, there is ThirdCity, and more where that came from.
But that is definitely me getting ahead of myself. One day at a time. Thanks for dropping by.
