It’s Okay to Summarize (For Now)

I can’t let myself overthink it. I can’t worry about whether the prose is any good, at least until I finish my draft. It’s always the same. The beginning coalesces, hardens into concrete, while the middle is mush and the end none existent. The worst that can happen is I don’t finish it. I have to keep reminding myself to stop worrying about the quality of the prose and just get it down. All of it.

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For Two Weeks I Slowed Down Time

Okay, not literally. The interval between seconds didn’t actually lengthen. Time didn’t tick by slower than usual. People around me didn’t speak with a drawl or move in slow motion. There were no redshifts or time dilation effects that I noticed. It wasn’t as if I was launched into space at near light speed and returned to Earth to find my husband an old man, hunched over, grasping a walking cane, and my boys with gray hair and grandchildren. Nothing like that.

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