I’m in Minneapolis this week, which is dotted with lakes large and small like holes in a piece of cheese. It’s my first trip since settling in Chicago. Being a stranger on a plane again got me writing. I was worried that I wouldn’t want to travel any more, that I’d overdosed on the experience in the year of assistant directing. However, I enjoyed it. And knowing I have a proper home to come back to made it feel less dangerous.

So I wrote. Zack knows that I’ve been trying to get back to some science fiction / fantasy material for quite some time, and my seatmate was reading a Mercedes Lackey, so I tried to follow up on an idea I had about “earlids” – a biology where you could close your ears, but not your eyes.

This is the first time I’ve messed around writing a longer short story since fiction class in college, and especially one which isn’t just a glorified short play. It was fun – I just scribbled everything I could think about the idea of “earlids,” including some sample dialogue and some questions to ask a biologist.

I would like to have the power of hearing be limited, and the power of sight be unlimitable – so that you could see, but not hear, through closed doors.