SHORT STORIES
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From Vices and Versas
From Plaintiffs and Pontiffs
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ROADKILLS
I have to wonder, every now and then, if I'm actually making any progress. Like, am I any better at writing than I was when I started? So I did a little experiment. I took a story that I wrote six years ago and, without referring to it, rewrote it entirely. I'm presenting them both to you, although I'd only recommend the new version. The first one is more of a curiosity, for those that are far too bored with their lives. Summer of 2010, I had just graduated from college. A newly minted philosopher, full of grand ideals. And then I spent five weeks in Germany. Shortly after I returned, I wrote this story. I started it in the parking lot of Johnson's Corner, Loveland, Colorado, and finished it on the back patio of an apartment in Gainesville, Florida. It took me two weeks, and what felt like a tremendous effort. Six months later, I started Bear Maze. At least one thing has changed since then—I wrote this version in two hours. And another thing—the style has changed a lot, I feel. Less of that pretentious, erratic nonsense that I love so much, and more of something else. I don't know what. And I'm not a newly minted philosopher anymore, I'm something else. I don't know what. I feel like now's as good a time as any to say that I'm going to gather these short stories together, along with a few new ones I haven't shared with you (so far, 'Murray Street' and 'Serial Tours') and publish them as a collection, sometime in the late summer. And I'm going to make changes—'Distillation' will have to be at least three times as long, somehow. It's not a story for ants, after all. For that future, published version of Roadkill, I'll try to synthesize the two versions. Half of what I was, half of what I am. I wonder what that will look like. |