Each week after release, I'm sharing notes on each of the stories in my new collection Guns, Gods and Robots along with a song recommendation or two that might share a theme or tone with the story.
Popular Mechanics for Young Widows
As many readers may know, I've published this before with a very different story line after chapter one. I liked that earlier version, but was always on the fence about Valerie's decisions internal monologue and my wife, a tough editor, agreed. She challenged me to strip the story down to it's core elements and see if it remained true to my original intent of the story. In doing so I returned the storyline to it's earliest version. Like Tyson, it's lean and and efficient and in my opinion a much stronger beast.If you've read the earlier version of Popular Mechanics for Young Widows I invite you to give this distilled and different version a read and let me know what you think.
All stories in this collection are designed to stand alone, but Popular Mechanics is in a way a thematic bookend to Numbers 16:32. There's also some obvious ancestral connections to a couple of story elements in Timothy that are very intentional.
This was one of the first stories I brought to Writer's Night at the Aurora Public Library. I'd never participated in a writer's group and their note and encourgement kept me going and gave me another audience to be accountable too. I encourage writers of all skill levels to join a local group. Even if you have no writing to share, your feedback is vital and welcome. I would not have been confident enough to release #GGR without their support.
Soundtrack:
David Bowie - Soul Love
I like to think of all the soft focus of Christmas store catalog covers and 1980's R&B videos when I imagine the goings on in the Valerie's life over the course of this story. This song fits right in.
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