If I didn’t know myself that I wrote “The Dreaming Arm” several months before reading Animorphs #4, I would’ve sworn it had been inspired by them finding Ax under the ocean.
Anyway, check out my all new, just released today flash fiction, The Dreaming Arm!
What actually inspired this story was a sense of despair over how much energy I’ve put into my writing… for relatively little in the way of worldly rewards. I felt like the energy I was spending was dragging my whole family down during a time when we didn’t have energy to spare.
The pandemic has been rough for a lot of the writing industry. I’ve never written my fiction with the expectation of making a lot of money… I was raised to believe artists should have a day job to fall back on…
What I’ve come to believe is that everyone should have Universal Basic Income to fall back on. That would do so much for so many people, but especially artists of every kind.
The best art isn’t necessarily very commercial, and that’s just how it’s always gonna be.
All that said, money is a stand-in for respect in this very broken society, so it can be hard on the soul to deeply and continuously pursue a calling that makes next to nothing financially. It can feel like a waste of time and energy.
But it’s not. Art makes life worthwhile.
When I wrote “The Dreaming Arm,” it felt like a pretty lie I was telling myself about how everything would work out in the end. We’d find a spaceship and everything would become magically better.
That didn’t happen… and yet, it doesn’t feel like a lie now.
Sometimes when everything is just too hard to face, you just need to find a way to weather the storm. Sunny skies will come again. You’ll love your writing. You’ll remember why you keep doing it, and why it doesn’t matter if anyone else cares or even understands.
Anyway, that’s enough philosophizing for now.
Back to reading Animorphs!