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Showing posts from April, 2007

The Rat's Nest

I've been reading the Finca Vigia edition of Hemingway's short stories and he did this really interesting thing in "The First Forty-nine" that I really liked. In between each of the meatier stories he'd have a very, very short story. Short like 5-8 sentences. These operate in much the same way as the six-word stories but I found that they were a little harder. You have a little bit more room to explore, but you still have to leave a reader feeling as though there's a larger story that they need to play out in their head. I've worked all month on this and of all the ones I tried to write, this is the one I liked the most: When we slept, there wasn't much we could do about them. They skittered about, scratching at the walls and cupboards, scouring every bare corner for food, terrifying our sleep, making it uneasy, queasy and dreadful. We've been here six weeks and will be here who knows how many more longer and they never cease to stress