Shorter day today. Which is why I'm back home already.

Yesterday had a couple of classes to go be a writer at, interspersed between various other classes Hebe had to teach or otherwise babysit. If a couple classes can actually be interspersed. I dunno. But here's the funny thing: going in to kindasorta substitute teach college kids turns out to be a little symbiotic. So I guess I'm kinda being a little more careful about wording. You'll get that later.

Just one class today. And right in the middle. Granted, for me, time's pretty relative: having to be there at eight or nine or whatever it was, yesterday, was no big deal; I'd got up sometime on Tuesday night and played videogames until it was time to split, so it's not like I was rushed. Today's thing was at 11.30, I think. Until about one.

Same setup. Hebe reads the story to the class, who are reading along. Of course, the thing's five pages long, on three sheets of paper, each copy stapled; so there's this funny sorta pause at the end of each page as close to thirty copies flutter to get the next page to the top. I'm thinking it's about time to go digital: just put the thing up on a big plasmascreen and scroll through it as hypertext or something; print's kinda dead.

And we get through the story yet again. Which is getting boring, of course. By now, not only am I sick of it, but I'm really aware of some flaws. Or at least some things I coulda done better. Probably. Though half of those, I'm told, are brilliant as they are. Who knows.

And we're done. And the general questions again: who is this guy; why's he the way he is; what's the house like; et cetera. Questions I by now am tired of hearing asked, and weary of hearing answered.

Except that, this time, the answers were a little different. Some of them were actually a little scary.

I'm assuming at this point that you've read the thing, and yesterday's entry; if not, there's a problem here. Go do that before we move on.

This time, as per usual, the thing about the world ending was totally overlooked. Also, this time, I worked out why. Hebe's reading this thing and, though he gets that the world's ending outside, doesn't like that part of the story; so he kinda reads around all the hints, and even the punchline at the end. He reads the words, but he doesn't really make them evident. The kids of course are reading along, so you'd think they'd see it anyway; but...I can't really explain what the problem is. Hebe thinks it's that the whole story is full of exaggerated metaphors; so, by the time the simple matter of fact that the comet hit the planet is spelled out on the last page, it looks like just one more hyperbole. Maybe so. Maybe, also, that's not a bad thing. I had nothing to do with it; but I guess I'll take it anyway.

So, once again, now the story's changed. Because the comet hit the planet. And some really cool things happened. Primarily all from this one chick. I guess her name's Leia. If it's not, it is now, because it doesn't really matter much.

Before the comet hit the planet, she hates this guy [as always, most of the class assume this is supposed to be autobiographical; so, maybe, she hates me by implication; the whole time, I'm pretty much just smirking a bit, waiting for people to hear about the comet they didn't manage to read about]—the guy's a waste of space who hates everyone and everything and probably himself; he's got things to do [apart from the fridge containing only spoiled food, there's little indication that the power's out, and the XBox with it], and doesn't do them; he could go outside and be part of the world [the comet's not apparently part of the world], but he can't or won't bring himself to enter the [?vestigial] human race; he basically sucks, and we hate him.

Then there's this comet thing. After several leading questions, some massive hints, and, finally, Hebe just saying 'The comet hit the planet; it's been raining saltwater from the ocean into Denver for sixty hours; outside this house the guy's in with spoiled food in an unpowered fridge and an XBox connected to nothing useful, it's armageddon' to get us to this comet thing. And the penny drops; and the class as one speedread through the story again, OMGing and gasping at the obviosity [it's a word because I say so]; and Leia's back with her revised analysis: that she can't hate this guy anymore because he's now a victim of this larger circumstance, not some selfhating product of his own suck.

Being evil, I run with that, and go one better: He was that evil; the end of the world only changed him to this extent, while the rest of the planet—of those who survived—went instantly batshit. So there; neener.

Not that I'd know anything about that. I just wrote the thing down. I never thought about it any more deeply than the sum total of the text. So, as cool as it is to watch students try to implant all manner of hidden and withheld meaning into this thing, it's mostly just fun to lead them on until I admit that I'd just written this thing down in half an hour, start to finish, without revisions, because I was sitting in a pub without WiFi one afternoon in June when it occurred to me that, unable therefore to hit twitter.com, the world could end out there and I'd never even know it.

Still: I'm really sick of the whole story now. I see flaws in it: some noticed by others; most invisible to everyone else. It's become simply annoying.

So, thinking we might do this again next year, I think I'd rather write something new. Probably something simpler. Or at least more obvious. And probably something no one can confuse with an autobiography.

Steve Stirling once wrote, in Conquistador, that: There is a technical term for someone who confuses the opinions of a character in a book with those of the author. That term is idiot. Or, you know, student.

It's something to think about. For a minute or two. Probably while I'm typing something else. Got it.

I'll go work on that for a while, I guess.

UPDATE: I went and did that for a while: Evening.

More later....

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