Something very weird happened to me earlier this year. I did not realize when I wrote “the weirdest thing happened to me” in last year’s blog post that things were about to get even weirder. Apparently God was not finished answering my prayer to help me “to believe for real, like, really real. For real.”
The weirdest thing happened. I asked God to help me believe. I did not expect an answer.
I got an answer.
Five years ago—and not coincidentally, two years after California legalized recreational marijuana—I accepted an invitation from a Christian friend to attend her son’s baptism and took my younger son with me. Last summer, my younger son decided to get baptized after attending a church camp. I decided if he’s going to do it, I would too.
Interest in UFOs waxes and wanes like moon phases, and it’s waxing again—a bright, ginormous, greenish-grayish alien moon appearing next to our usual boring one and causing strong tides of interest, diverting our attention from more important news—the Bud Light boycott, all-ages drag shows, Trump’s indictment, Biden’s trips and falls… Frankly, I find the UFO gossip a welcome distraction.
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.
My latest short story, “Robot Mommy,” is now appearing in Issue 972 of BewilderingStories.com.
How Often Should I Blog? Consistently. Here’s a better question: if I want to be a novelist and not a blogger, should I bother at all?
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.
I’m thrilled my latest short story “Invasion of the Alien Parasite from Interdimensional Space” is now appearing in issue 925 of BewilderingStories.com.
My short story “The Girl with No Eyes” has been published by Altered Reality Magazine. I’m so thankful my story found a home.