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Saturday Short: The Small Things

Saturday, July 18, 2020 at 11:01am

This has been a difficult week for me, but between recharging and collecting my thoughts this weekend, I have also made progress on a new story. This is unsurprising, as I have a history of channeling my life challenges into narrative.

This new story has a working and likely final title of The Small Things. I am going to hold off on sharing any details about its plot or characters for the time being. I think that when savvy readers eventually read it, the reason for this decision will be abundantly clear.

There are a few things I can say about it, however. It is set on planet Ytria, and contains references to both One’s Own Medicine and Habitat. If I publish this story, it will be in the final position in the collection Chronicles of Ytira.

In the past, when I have channeled elements of my life, it has been possible for other people in my life to see themselves in my characters. Although I see my characters as just my characters and not representations of people I know, I am sensitive to the fact that the people who are important to me could read it that way. To date, whenever this has happened, the individuals in question have given their approval of my fictional depictions. If someone were to ever tell me that they didn’t want me to publish such a work, I would respect that decision. Since most of the joy is simply in the construction and expression of the world, that is fine by me. I hope that The Small Things is able to fall into this category as well.

The Small Things is currently 5,000 words and feels as though it is half complete. If that turns out to be an accurate gut assessment, it will be the longest Ytria story to date.

Apologies for the cryptic post, but it is necessary.

Chronicles of Ytria today stands at 46,600 words: