Sickness & Health

Sickness of me, that is. Health of my writing.

Yes -- I've been writing!

I got out some of my old stories and have been reading them over. I started writing on one of them again.

It is a story that I started years ago, wrote in bits and gradually extended until now it's 200 pages. (I never planned to make it into a novel -- maybe a novella at most.)

It's a science fiction piece, although it's the soft, almost fantasy sciece fiction that I enjoy. (Hard sf seems more "legitimate" sometimes, but I don't see why it should. In my opinion, all fiction is to examine humans, and I don't see how "hard" "plastic and metal" science fiction does that any better.)

My story is about people with "powers" in a struggle against one of those vast galactic organizations of evil. I really like the characters. There are two main ones, several supporting ones, but only one viewpoint character. At the beginning of the story, he is in jail and close to death. By this point, he has a lot of power but it struggling because he's lost his wife. (I suspect that situation will soon be reversed.)

I found one spot where I messed up the viewpoint, writing "I" instead of "he" -- an absolutely unconscionable error (though it was only a slip). The funny thing is that I must have read over that error three times at least, and I've never changed it yet. I think I can account for this; when I'm reading over one of my stories, it sort of keeps me in its spell until I've reached a place where I can stop. So even though I might see an error, it takes a lot to make me stop reading, pick up a pencil, and correct it.

Also, there's something about reading a story (even my own) that makes it feel as though it's graven in stone -- even though when I'm writing, it has to be fluid, flexible, and I sometimes think, "I'll go back and change that later." This is why I have to *force* myself to go back and edit, on important stories. I'm not what you'd call a 'natural editor.'

I'm not sure if my favorite character is the main character (who is noble and personable, but never seems to realize it), or the second-to-main character (who is a gem among men -- I don't know how else to describe him). The two are best friends, and I hope that they shall always remain so.

Sometimes I wonder if I write about friends so much because I haven't had very many of my own.