Over recent weeks I have found myself asking a lot of strange things of Google. The question used as the title of this post is the latest in a long line of random queries I have submitted in the quest to keep my stories relatively accurate. For Gastro The Great I spent a good chunk of time finding out about unfounded food scares and the potential for genetically modifying chickens. A Matter Of Time had me checking out how many times a person breathes on average during his or her life as well as the number of hours a person spends on a train. Pretty much everything else in the story I extrapolated (in a highly mathematical and scientific fashion of course) from those two facts.
Last night saw the completed draft of a piece I'm tentatively calling The Curse. It's a bit longer than some of the others I've written although having scanned through the opening page this afternoon a savage edit is imminent and it could end up being very short.
The Curse is an apt title as the entire process has been a difficult one. I started writing it a couple of months ago and couldn't work out where it was going. It took an unexpected path a while later and then stalled again, so this week I forced myself to drag it kicking and screaming through to completion.
It's been a valuable lesson for me that writing is not always easy and that some stories have to be chiselled out of the rock with very blunt tools. I read this week that what separates good writers from bad writers is perseverance and this experience will (I hope) improve my writing going forward.
I'm still not convinced that I love the tale but my job now is to make it the best that it can be and let others decide.
As for who the mute is, what he or she does and whether or not he or she can whistle...? You'll have to read it to find out.
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