In the Mail

In the mail indeed. In the end, the lovely Elyena and I decided to send WotF a short story trilogy that we called Suffer the Child. It is made up of the stories "The Wasted Portion", "To Turn on One's Own", and "A New Guardian" and tells the riveting tale of the pre-Captain's wrestle with acceptance, morality, and authority. It is a charming, if violent, story. I am sure you are asking yourself, "Self, how many times does the pre-Captain get his bum kicked in this episode?" I'll give you a complete rundown of the incident statistics (+/- 25%).

Corpses: 6

Snubbings: 7

Smacktalk: 4

Smackdowns (the pre-Captain): 2

Smackdowns (someone else): 5

Cleaning up the baby: 2

Groupthink (the product of a mob of people) actually leading to something good: 1 (I know you're skeptical, but it could happen)

Getting knocked around by horses: 2

Romantic moments: 0

Asking for directions: 2

So that is Suffer the Child told statistically. Was it edifying? Satisfying? Horrifying? I found that to be an interesting experiment myself. Someone who has read the prose may disagree with my numbers, but like a professional statician I allowed enough of a margin of error that they don't mean anything anyways.

I also sent out ADIS to face the Kurt Vonnegut Fiction Prize challenge. While WotF should have results back in 10-15 weeks, I have no idea on the KVFP. Since it is annual, I suppose they could deliberate for a year on it. We shall see. Both contests publish winners and offer a satisfying cash prize.

So, Write On. And I will too.

R.