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A year ago today, I had my first drabble published by Black Hare Press. In my first attempt at writing for a professional publication, I ended up with four drabbles accepted into their anthology, Beyond Dark Drabbles #4. I thought today would be a fitting day to launch a blog series where I look back at a story I’ve written and discuss what inspired me to write it.
Inspiration is fickle. It’s whimsy and heady, and oftentimes scarce. In a world where I see friends talking about how difficult it is to sit in front of the page and write, I wanted to remind myself (and anyone else who wants to share this journey with me) about the things that touched me enough to set word to paper.
As today is the anniversary of the publication of Beyond, I picked the story The Walk to start us off.
The Walk is a 100-word science fiction story of a general at the end of his career, coming back to the scene of a space battle that haunted him throughout his career. In my mind, he won the battle which turned the tides of war, but the moral cost to himself was high. Here, he returns to walk one of the ravaged ships one last time, letting the ghosts of the fallen finally take him.
The inspiration was an image I had found (that I no longer have to share. Sorry!). It was just the skeletal metal halls of a ship that led to an open view of space where it had been ripped open. Debris spread out in space around them. At the bottom right corner of the frame was the boot of someone looking out over the damage. Just the boot. Nothing more. It led to imagine though. What happened here? Why would you return to this place? Were you a survivor? Were you there? Is this blood on your hands? Or did you order someone else to do the dirty work?
In this case, the story became about a man who gave the orders for destruction. A survivor of many battles finally come back to give the ghosts of the dead some peace.
I hope you enjoyed this little glance into my head. I have to admit that reminiscing about this has given me a boost of creative energy tonight and I think I’ll return to the pages that are sitting on my computer, waiting.
If you’re interested in learning more about the book, you can check it out on my books page.
