Three things make a long overdue post

1) First, I’ll get the pimpage out of the way: The Best of Every Day Fiction, which includes my story “Dumping the Dead” and a slew of other flash fiction stories (including some fellow flisters), is now available.

2) Today the procrastination gods compelled me to take a look at the “ideas” folder on my computer where I throw whatever crumb of an idea lodges itself in my brain–from quotes I’ve overhead to phrases or titles that have popped into my head to full-fledged plot sketches. The crumbs in there stretch all the way back to high school, so there was a lot of…well, dreck. Cliches. Ideas that have been done to death and that I had no original spin on. Some that were just plain stupid. So I jettisoned some of the dead weight (though not all of it; occasionally, I’ve been able to mine something cool out of an otherwise craptastic idea). But most of the stuff in that folder is there for a good reason, so I now I find myself wanting to write 20 short stories all at once. Stupid lack of a clone.

3) I’ve been feeling restless. In need of some change–which will soon be coming, but not soon enough for impatient me. Appropriately, it wasn’t all that long ago that a discussion group I was participating in raised a question about change and whether you’re someone who resists it or welcomes it. As with so many things for me, it depends.

With some things, I easily fall into patterns. I’m the type of person who tends to gravitate toward sitting in the same seat on the train and will find myself getting irrationally annoyed if someone is already in it. But with a lot of other things, I get restless if things stay the same too long. I get bored if I have to perform the same piece of music too many times. One of the things I loved about college was having a different class schedule every semester, so I’m looking forward to that again with grad school. And one of the many things that appeals to me about writing fiction is that I can write a story, and then do something completely different with the next one. Different genre, different style, different point of view, different tense, you name it.

So now that I’m done rambling, feel free to chime in with your own thoughts on dealing with change. Love it? Hate it? Too busy changing your hair color to answer?