So I finally did something I’ve been meaning to do a LONG time. I revamped another short story that I originally wrote about twenty years ago. And it’s less than half the length of the first version.

Originally written in 2005, the first version of “Just Like Stephen” meandered a lot and stayed stuck in the protagonist’s head a lot, had a lot of fluff and digressions, and didn’t really handle its back-and-forth transitions with much finesse. I still thought the meat of this story was decent and wanted to completely rewrite it someday, especially since I’d shared the old version online. The new version that I have now finished revamping has completely original text except for the characters’ names and a few lines I liked. It’s entirely a different story, but it’s got some shared bones.

I had it on the list to rewrite sometime this year but when I saw a cool submissions call that I thought this would fit, I went ahead and did it. I did the majority of the writing on October 4, knocked out its ending October 5, and did some editing on it for a couple days before declaring it done. I hope it can make its way into the world soon!

This one is about a guy who has a secret case of poorly defined magic that he has to hide or he’ll basically be institutionalized, and he knows all about it because it happened to his older brother. This is about one day in his life when he has to solve a problem with magic and not let anyone know he’s doing so. Can’t clock back in late from lunch break, after all.