As much as it feels like cheating somehow, to write about a story I just wrote, I’m going to do it anyway. Cause hey, who’s to stop me?

I just re-read it fresh this morning. Bret might be right. It might stop too abruptly. When I was writing last night, it felt like it was done. But now, when I read it, I get real into it, into the moment, and then once I scroll down to see that’s the end of the post, I get disappointed. I’m thinking I should probably open up the hood and see what I can do to make it run a few more miles.

I actually have a pretty clear idea about what happens. But it’s not so much about any activity that occurs or doesn’t occur. It’s just them sitting in that booth some more. But there is some information that I intended to reveal about what happened in intervening years. But then I decided against it, cause I didn’t want to make it too depressing. But maybe I can do it without having it be a huge downer. We’ll see. I’ll give it a shot.

Some notes on the name of the main character. I was looking for a name which included the concept of memory in its definition. I discovered that “Zachary” comes from the Hebrew Zechariah, which means “Yahweh Remembers”. And that just seemed too cool not to use. But I decided that I didn’t want to have to keep calling the character “Zack” because that just made me think of Saved by the Bell.

So I decided to use the trick that I learned from Philip K. Dick, where he tells you the character’s full name straight off, but then only ever refers to them by their last name. That way, you get to cram in the name, but don’t have to use it. So, for a last name, I wanted to come up with something that was a variation on this whole memory thing. Then I thought of how Odin (of Norse mythology) has those two ravens, named Hugin & Munin, and how their names are supposed to mean “Thought” & “Memory” respectively. With that in mind, I looked up names which meant or included “Bird” somehow and came up with “Avis” which is Latin for bird. And the title popped out as soon as I came up with Avis as his last name.

The bar this took place in, in my head, was Dougherty’s in Baltimore. Anyway, enough dawdling. I oughta get back at it. Plus, I have an idea for another story after this.

UPDATE!

I think it’s finished after all. I tried writing more after that, but it just wouldn’t let me. Oh well. I really like the character of Zachary Avis though. I think we haven’t seen the last of him. Now that I’m not writing it, I don’t mind mentioning that I was going to have it be revealed that Elizabeth was killed in a car accident shortly after this enhanced memory takes place. I was gonna write this paragraph about how her car had been T-boned, and all this other stuff. Maybe that’ll come later on though. As it stands, I want to stick to my original instincts about where to end it. And I want the moment in the story not to be marred by anything, except for the knowledge that its a memory, and that it must end. It feels wrong to force it to end though by writing more.