At the the S.F. Writers Conference, Author Elizabeth Engstrom said that when she is writing a novel, characters and plots for short stories nag at her until she writes them. She calls these stories, “rats in the walls of her psyche”. At times she tells them to go away but at other times, she will write the story and submit it to publications that have printed her stories in the past. Engstrom likes to use the lull in her novel, that part in the middle she calls a wasteland, to take a break and write that short story. She's able to complete the first draft in twenty-four hours and that quiets the rat.
I’m reminded of the gray roof rat we recently sent on its way.
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