I’ve wanted to write a sketch about Bond girls. They were young, sixty years ago. Some died for their country, but where might we find the others? What would Pussy Galore have chosen for a second career?
Two years ago, game designer Morgan Macri had a summer internship at Eastgate. We had a long debate about characters who don't disclose their gender; this once was simple and might someday be simple again, but in contemporary English it is fraught. I thought it would be fun to try, in the context of a story in which I could arrange whatever I wanted in order to serve that particular end. So, my character was born into a Karen family in a Thai refugee camp is works as a mercenary trainer for various Western armies; her name gives nothing away, nor does she. Even so, Mu Lay bent me in knots whenever she spoke.
I also wanted to try a pure, or nearly pure, spatial hypertext fiction. Cathy Marshall had suggested this some years ago. Readers had treated Those Trojan Girls that way. Why not?
48 hours gives you time to sketch, but not enough time to work out technical problems — and no time at all for revisions. This is the worst thing I’ve written since I was an undergraduate.