I’m doing my best to communicate with people who’ve been dead for centuries.
I just recorded a podcast based on my experience editing an anthology of short fiction. ‘Never, ever, describe speech using anything other than “said,”’ I opined.
If my protagonists sued me for emotional distress, at least I’d know I let them feel the full range of human messiness instead of wrapping them in narrative bubble wrap.
I name my characters after people such as the guy who rang up the cumin at the cash register who is himself really into Babylonian esotericism but not so much that he changed his name to Zoltan ben’Marduk or anything.
Blinking and judgmental, always — that steady little flash isn't a cursor, it’s my conscience with a pixelated face, keeping time with every sentence I almost commit to and then delete.