8FOLD: Journey Into # 13: The Five Graph Trap!

[Andrew Perron]

On Wed, 21 Jul 2010 05:33:06 +0000 (UTC), Tom Russell wrote:

> He must be more
> brilliant in this week, this day, perhaps even this hour, than he's
> ever been in the past.  And indeed, more brilliant than he ever could
> be.

Ooooooh.  Very, very nice.  Sort of like a reverse Ozymandias, but far more
difficult.

> NOTES.
> 
> The problem with being the sort of chap who sometimes fusses over a
> story for weeks and months is that all that fussing isn't conducive to
> finishing a story in a timely manner-- that is, say, before a high
> concept contest deadline.  

Oh, do I ever know that one. (Looniverse Chronicles #1 was only thirteen
minutes before the deadline - or it would have been, had Dave not been a
time zone over from me.)

> Having missed the last deadline for
> precisely that reason, I said, to hell with it, it's gonna be a little
> messy, but let's get the damn thing done this time around.  Having
> just finished proofreading said story, I'm not too deeply unhappy with
> it; I think the idea's reasonably clever and the ornate execution
> somewhat appropriate for such an ornate thinker.

I was going to say it felt a bit rushed, but then I realized...

> This story doesn't only reflect the death trap theme in its substance,
> but I also consciously trapped myself formally in writing it by using
> The Five Paragraph Strait-Jacket, as we used the standard format for
> both essays and creative writing back in high school.  

...that it had a length limitation.  With that in place, I saw how cleverly
it had been used; it felt longer than it was.

> Anyway, I hoped you enjoyed it.

I did!

> Also: I decided to drop the ellipses from the series title.

Aw, man, I loved the ellipsis!  More punctuation in series titles, I say.

> Also also: apparently, accordingly to that wildly inaccurate textual
> analysis website, this is written like David Foster Wallace. Well,
> that's better than Joyce, that's for damn sure.

I kept getting DFW.  I've never read anything he's done; suppose I should
try it out, eh?

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, apparently getting more Lovecraft-esque
over time.