author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

One of the side benefits of fictioneering is the Fiction Bubble. The author immerses herself in her fictional world, seeing her characters' surroundings out of their eyes, building a wall of narrative around herself word by word. It can be a disadvantage, sure, if the Fiction Bubble makes it hard for the author to focus on Responsible Stuff, sure, but when the real world is full of Seriously Tragic Stuff Against Which One Feels Helpless, a good cushion of fiction between oneself and reality also serves as a cushion between oneself and the onset of clinical depression.

Addendum: This. And on that note, this too.

Cultivate dailiness, ye writers and storytellers, for the Truth may set ye free, but a good Lie can keep ye sane.

Nevertheless. I've begun a short story about rebuilding New Orleans. It's a ghost story, of course. The first few sentences go something like this:

They rebuilt New Orleans on top of its own bones in the year 2006. They caught the floating caskets and anchored them once more to their mausoleums. They planted a new Mardi Gras tree on Bonnabel Boulevard. They dried out Mandina's and put on a fresh pot of red beans and rice. And we all came home.

Only time and a finished first draft will tell whether it'll turn into something worth publishing or remain nothing more than an angry liberal New Orleanian's wish-fulfillment fantasy. Plotwise, that'll probably depend on whether the stuff I'm wishing for incurs a price within the story. Magic, miracles, and the helpful dead--they don't come for free.

Meanwhile, Drowning Boy is swimming along. I wish I were going faster with it, but at least Chapter 10 isn't slogging at the sloggy non-speed of Chapter 7. More action and discovery of new worlds; less maudlin wallowing. Because the rewrite has Brian changing land for sea at Lake Union instead of Alki Beach, I had to get him through the Ballard Locks. Research can be fun! Another side benefit of fictioneering: the author never lacks for excuses to learn a little bit about everything.

Not that I don't have a good excuse already, what with being a human being in an interesting--sometimes too-interesting--world. But it's amazing how far down a tangent "I can use this in a story" will go.