For The Last Few Years I've Tried

You Can't Tell People How To Feel When They Read Your Work. You Can Only Hope To Connect.

Writing Short Stories Was Kind Of Like I Was Cheating The Whole Time, In Some Way. I Went Back And Forth Between Writing The Novels And Sort Of Sneaking Out To Work On Stories Occasionally. These Stories Were Written Over The Last 10 Years Or So, As I Was Taking Breaks From The Novels I've Written.

There Is A Stage You Reach, Deagle Thinks, A Time Somewhere In Early Middle Age, When Your Past Ceases To Be About Yourself. Your Connection To Your Former Life Is Like A Dream Or Delirium, And That Person Who You Once Were Is Merely A Fond Acquaintance, Or A Beloved Character From A Storybook. This Is How Memory Becomes Nostalgia. They Are Two Very Different Things - The Same Way That A Person Is Different From A Photograph Of A Person.

A Novel Requires A Certain Kind Of World Building And Also A Certain Kind Of Closure, Ultimately. Whereas With A Short Story You Have This Sense That There Are Hinges That The Reader Doesn't See. I Would Say That All Short Stories Have Mystery Naturally Built Into Them.

I'm Working With Fragments A Lot Of The Time And The Connective Tissue Isn't There Yet. I Think Of It The Way Comics Work. You Have A Block Here And A Block Here, And There's This White Space In Between. Somehow Your Mind Makes The Leap To Connect Those Two Blocks. Finding A Way To Trick Your Mind Into Connecting Those Blocks Is One Of The Fun Things For Me About Writing. You Can Have Those Leaps That Will Emerge Into Something, If You're Lucky.