This week’s story began with an article by Andrew Marantz in the current Harper’s which details the imminent demise of Tuvalu, an ultra low-altitude island nation in the Pacific that is slowly being drowned by rising sea levels. I read this article with great interest. I found all the details of how an island disappears to be fascinating. The saga gave me the idea for my story about a king whose nation is slipping into the sea. I wanted the story to straddle the real world and the allegorical realm. To that end, I gave the king a “palace” in the form of a double-wide trailer. I also treated the king with great respect as a character, but made it clear that his realm is a distinctly modest dominion.
Anyway, I don’t want to give away too much of the story. I started writing it at 7:30 on Sunday morning, and finished it about 10:30. Three total hours writing, about 3400 words long. I took another hour and a half to edit it and to make a cover and format it for publication and upload it to the ebook sites. Kim read it and said it was a very Mario story. Another half hour to put it up on my own website and to write this post. Total time from start to finish: about 5 hours.
