School has been keeping me pretty busy, and one of the things we’re doing is mucking about with social media as writers, potential writers, people posing as writers, etc. So I’ve been flogging around my short story, January Thaw, in various places and thought I’d make a link to it available on Ye Olde Blog for anyone who might be interested.
January Thaw posits a future where old age is a thing of the past and no one dies anymore. Carolyn Deschaines is a woman who has lived too long, and after 150 years she has decided to gracefully “die of old age.” She puts her affairs in order but then she meets Theo…
Additionally, I finished the Red Spiny Back Poxwalker, who is now ready to take to the field with its green twin. I hope to get some pictures of my newest addition to the Festering Horde soon.
Ann's Immaterium 
13 responses to “January Thaw: Short Story”
That was a very enjoyable read. I like the premise you went with. I always enjoy sci-fi that is very plausible and not too far fetched. For some reason it had me thinking of soylent green, perhaps because of the clinic.
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Thank you. Most of the speculative stuff I’ve written thus far has been what I imagine as near future possibilities, though I try my best to make it more about the characters than the speculative elements, since that is what interests me more.
You are right about soylent green! When I did he first draft I had Edward G. Robinson’s face and the orange room in my head when I was writing it, but the odd thing is I didn’t realize that was what I was doing until the third or fourth draft.
I have to say, if I were an actress, that scene would be a pretty darned nice one to be the last thing I ever did after a long career, rather than doing what a lot of them seem to do, which is have ever-diminishing roles until they finally fade away into the spirit world of old movies.
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Really enjoyed it Ann 👍🏼
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Many thanks! 🙂
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Well I finished it and thoroughly enjoyed it, you certainly threw in a few curve balls in there 👏👏👏👏
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Got up to part three, very good so far. As it is nearly midnight I will catch the rest tomorrow 👍
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Thank you, I’m glad you are enjoying it; I had fun writing it. I’m glad that school suggested that I start putting some of my writing online because after the magazine published it back in 2011 or so I forgot all about it until I saw it in my archives.
The only bad thing so far is I think in editing it I introduced a few new typos, etc. So I’m going to have to go back and give it another edit when I have some time.
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Not bad. Not bad at all. 🤓. Reminds me of some of the fringe sci-fi stuff I used to read back in the early nineties. I’ve always enjoyed shorter stories. They put an interesting level of pressure on an author to build, and conclude, a story without the safety net of a few hundred spare pages. Well done.
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That is true, writing short does require a smaller canvas to say what you are going to say. I’ve noticed over the years that the canvas has been getting smaller and smaller (with exceptions). When I was writing back in the 90’s a lot more places were looking for stuff in the 3K – 5K word range. Now with a lot of it being online there is a lot more interest out there for 500 words – 1.5K.
Can’t say too much about novels since I’ve never written one, though given the program I’m in I’ll be starting that later this year, I’m sure.
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I guess the way we read has changed as much as the way we write. Most of my reading is short one off stories or novellas now. The last proper set of books that really held my attention was when I reread Katharine Kerr’s Deverry series (12 or more books…) sometimes the long sagas can be nice too.
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Yes, I guess one has to go where the readers are if you want people to possibly read your stuff. 🙂
I agree, the longer sagas can be good. I have fond memories of the first time I read Roger Zelazny’s Amber series, though I haven’t read a series of books in awhile either. I do find when I like a book I’ll read other books by the same author. For instance, I re-read E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web last month and found the book as well-written and moving as I remembered it being when I first read it back in the ’70’s, so I read Trumpet of the Swans this month, which I’d never heard of, and plan on reading his novella, Stuart Little as soon as I’m done with a book of ghost stories I’m reading my way through before bed.
Huzzah for libraries and intra-library loan!
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Just finished reading your story! I am no literary critic but I thought it was very good and well thought out as far extrapolating into the future was concerned. Most important thing though is I enjoyed reading it, so well done. Nearly lunchtime here in the UK so I’m off to make something the old-fashioned way!
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Thank you, John, I’m glad you enjoyed it and thank you for the kind words. 🙂 The story was originally published in a now unfortunately defunct magazine called “Tough Lit.”
I reworked the story, making some cuts, and decided to post it online. School wants me to get more involved online with my writing, and I had the story sitting around….
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