Something weird happened to me.
Back in 2018 I thought up an idea for a short story. That wasn't weird. It happens, though not as often as I would like.
So
I wrote the story. But I was editing it a year later (I take a long
time to edit a story, usually going through at least ten drafts) and I
saw a fatal flaw. I was basing it on technology that was out of date.
Setting the story in the past would not work as a solution. I could not think of a way
around the problem so, with a sigh, I left the story on the virtual
pile of never-to-be-published tales. Too bad, because I really liked
parts of it.
 |
| Dimitsana |
Jump ahead to 2021, and I am visiting Greece. Somewhere around Dimitsana I found myself thinking about my poor dead story. And suddenly I saw a solution to the problem. It meant ripping out half the story and writing some more, but I could keep the best parts.
So back in the good ol' USA I pulled up the last version of the story and started reading it. And I got a shock, because that's when I found something weird.
On page two there were a
couple of paragraphs I didn't remember. I had no idea why they were
there or what they had to do with the rest of the story. I kept reading
and on the next-to-last page I found another addition, completely
unfamiliar to me. It tied into the first and together they solved my
technology problem! In fact, it was a better solution than the one I
had thought of in Greece.
Not a big believer in the fae I assume that I must have solved that problem in a bolt of inspiration and then forgotten about it. The additions appeared only in the last (twelfth) draft of the story. (Lucky for me that I didn't pull up version 11 by mistake.)
So now I have to
start editing and polishing my newly recovered tale. Only the future
will reveal whether the elves provided me with a pair of Manolo Blahnik
Gold Grosgrain Crystal Buckle Mules or a couple of cheap knock-off
tennis shoes. Either way, I would be happy if they show up again.
