I’m fairly certain I’ve written before about the kinds of epiphanies you can experience as a writer, at any time and place, where suddenly all the figurative obstacles of a particular narrative point blow away and a light shines through. It’s those moments that for me make all the stress of wrangling an ongoing story worth the trouble, because preceding it are always those times where you feel like you’ve “painted yourself into a corner” with the tale so far and there’s no clean way out. That’s a suffocating feeling, and the confident decision you made a few weeks, months, or even years back might have you regretting that you didn’t take another track.
But I’ve learned through many of these moments to trust myself and my instincts. It helps immensely to have a wife who occasionally admits she thinks I’m some sort of magician at this point for the way I can continue to produce meaningful progression of a nearly ten year old story, weaving in elements that may give an entirely new but still plausible way to look at older stuff. Sometimes it’s all planned, and sometimes I’ll admit that I’m just an opportunist who has that flash of insight that the stuff I worried might be off-topic or meandering nonsense had a point after all.
It’s weird to think of interpreting your own text, and yet if you write the same story for long enough, I think it’s bound to happen sooner or later. Your brain connects the dots you didn’t quite see clearly.
That’s what I tell myself, anyhow. And hey, when life hasn’t exactly been free of stress, you take whatever epiphanies you can interpret.
6 thoughts on “540 – Trick Hello”
Scarsdale
Called it, she figured he’d do this, if by choice or by zombie voodoo. I’m sure the “friendlier” questioning will start soon, if she doesn’t just kill him out-right. Or just add him to the herd.
Crazyman
Gotcha!
Zombatar
This turn of events is a surprise only to Eustace. And, maybe, Eustace’s subconscious. After all, this way he doesn’t have to actually risk actually attacking Suzie, which gives him a greater chance of survival than actually attacking her. I wonder what he was promised/threatened with?
ConcordBob
Not to nit-pick, but since sights are on target, finger should be on the trigger. Especially this close.
The usual rule is “keep finger straight and off trigger until sights are on target”.
Dr. Norman (not a real doctor)
Not to nit-pick, but since that was current philosophies regarding trigger discipline have evolved.
Of course, it will depend on who you get/got your training from.
Experiments have determined that the fraction of a second to go from finger off the trigger to finger firing when appropriate is insignificant, and the risk of firing unintended is greatly reduced.
Dr. Norman (not a real doctor)
I did the google thing and I believe I saw how you reached this conclusion … but there are two parts to it – One should not omit the second part.
“Trigger Finger Discipline: · The practice of keeping your finger “off the trigger” until your sights are on target AND YOU ARE READY TO DISCHARGE THE FIREARM.” (Caps are my own)