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Sentence | Oct 19 2003

I wrote a new story for the reading I did a few weeks back. I’ve been meaning to share it with you, only I wanted to make some minor changes first. Problem is, I’m unable to read past the first sentence.

It’s not that I don’t like the first sentence. In fact I think it’s a fine sentence. A bit flat perhaps, but not in a bad way. Factual-seeming. Modest. Like a song that begins with a simple bass line. Or like the beginning of a roller coaster ride, when the track is flat and you’re hardly moving.

This is in contrast to the sentence I had there originally, which was way more dramatic and “hooky.” My friend Anne convinced me to change it. She said I should give my readers a chance to settle in and figure things out for themselves. I think she was right, and I’m pretty happy with what I came up with.

But like I said, I’m unable to get past that sentence. I read it and think, Oh shit, this again.

It’s partly because of how I wrote the story. What I did was, I made myself crazy. I turned off my phone and email and lowered the shades and played the same two songs over and over for hours at a time.

Now I can’t listen to those songs and I can’t read past the first sentence.

The thing to do, obviously, is to let it sit for a while, maybe even a year, and come back with “new eyes.” This is my plan. In the meantime I’ve formatted the story for the web (without reading a word!) and have added it to my other longer stories. It’s called End of Story.

I hope you read it and like it, but whatever you do, please don’t send me any emails in which you quote passages from it, not even as a joke.

Also, if you happen to have a party and you happen to invite me to that party, I’d be much obliged if you didn’t play Trailer Trash by Modest Mouse or Else by Built to Spill.

Thanks in advance.