I’ve got two more first drafts done. One is for a horror piece set in Hell, and the other is for a science fiction piece taking a look at the end of the Universe, or more specifically the survivors still left as the end of the Universe draws to a close.

What’s nifty about both of these stories is they leverage the “percolate” method to create fiction, the one I use these days. I’ve been letting ideas germinate for a while in my mental soil, only plucking and cultivating them when I absolutely have to write the ideas down. This has been a much better approach for me than what I’ve typically done in ealier years, which is to force myself to immediately come up with plots, themes and characters, then chase them down on text, hampering what I ultimately create.

An analogy might be that in the past I would often pull the metal from the furnace before it was ever ready. Now, I wait until it is glowing red hot, and only then do I pull it from the flames and hammer away. It is easier to work with, the process is delightfully more intensive, and the end product often better crafted.

Now comes the editing.

Stay tuned.