Thank you Angela for inviting me to your
blog. I’m honoured to be here. It’s a feeling not dissimilar to how I felt
a little over a year ago when Allan Hudson asked me if I would be
interested in contributing to an anthology that eventually became Autumn Paths.
I remember being both delighted and
daunted by the invitation. When I saw
the list of authors, I almost ran the other way. I’m exaggerating, but only a little. Everyone on the roster had much more
experience than I did. On top of which,
I was the only one writing fantasy and science fiction. I felt somewhat the impostor (an affliction
that seems to run rampant with authors).
In the end, though, it was just too enticing an opportunity to pass
and the project quickly became a highlight in my writing venture.
When it came time to decide which story
to submit, I was hoping that one of the many projects I had under development
would fit the selected theme. I
went through the list, but you’ve guessed it: nothing felt quite right (vive
Murphy’s Law!).
At this point, I remembered some readers
telling me that they wanted to learn more about the System of Garadia, the
futuristic world where my latest science fiction novel, Deficiency, took
place. All right, let’s be honest. What the readers asked for was a
sequel... I honestly didn’t see
that coming, and as a result, none was planned (things have changed slightly
since then). Still, the anthology
provided an opportunity.
Like most of my stories, I started with a
short first draft and added details and layers with the next five or six
iterations, almost tripling the length of the text. I know that many authors write a long first
draft and then pair it down. Stephen
King, in his book “About Writing”, proposes the following formula: 2nd
draft = 1st draft - 10%. That doesn’t
quite work for me. For Red Stars, I
went through the story nine times, and although I reduced its length
significantly by the end, I still continued to polish and add details until
that last version.
Red Stars touches on the sense of self,
while playing with memories, real versus fabricated. It also explores a particular technology that is both
terrifying and limitless in its possibilities.
As the author, I can frankly say that I do not understand everything
about it yet. I probably never
will.
This was a challenging story to write, but also
very rewarding. I’m grateful for the
anthology, because it probably would not have been written otherwise. I hope readers will enjoy reading it as much
as I enjoyed writing it.
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A copy of Autumn Paths is available Here and you can read more about the anthology, the other authors, and their stories Here Here Here and Here
