Jodie,
I must start by saying how sorrowful I am all this happened, and that I hope you will return. Enough, there are more important matters.

I held off on making longer comments on your story for many reasons, as I told you in a PM, first, since I knew the blueprint for your work, I did not want to ruin any surprises but, also, because I thought too much discussion of the style might put some off. I was waiting till the end to say much more. I'll go ahead and say some now.

I was very glad to see someone take the chance and post such a story, it isn't so much a risk as a leap into an area that you know will turn off many people. (And I am not talking about the content) Almost thirty years ago Annie Dillard asked why Calvino, Nabokov, Barth, Borges, et al. had not set off a revolution in fiction, and of course the answer is because everyone wants the familiar, the safe. The traditional style is what we learned to read with. The 'new fiction' (a misnomer; Cervantes, Shakespeare, Homer and Scheherazade all used the elements that make it up; but the other terms are just as misleading.), it seems, requires practice.

But it pays off so well once the effort is made! (That isn't a compliment to you or a boast for myself, I mean with the great writers that explore these styles.) That is not to say that it can or should replace all of traditional stories, but while people complain about the clichés within stories they recoil form many attempts to try new voices.

Your story was especially exciting to me because, since I read much, much more than I write, The Reader In The Story has long been one of my favorite areas of exploration. I think (I don't know or sure) that if a CD player were dropped into a total wilderness and began to play, that would be music; if a hundred year old Van Goth is buried under old straw in some Arles barn it is still a work of art; but a work of fiction does not exist at all (at least, as more than an idea) until some one opens it and experiences it. That, to me at least, was what your story was about.

When we write within a frame sometimes it is like the frame around a picture (but even then it is more than simply a decoration.); sometimes it is really the purpose of the story. You had just started to bring the frame into the forefront, and I (while silent for the reasons mentioned) rejoiced. With great effort you had created an environment to involve the reader, where the reader's role, the reader's quest, for The Story was paramount.(true it is a fictional reader, but still...)

All these chances, risks, and having to write not one, but several stories (both successful and intentionally nonsuccessful), in the hope that someone else will get it -- will bring you idea to life! Is it any wonder that you (and all writers) suffer posting anxiety, become hypersensitive about the baby?

Thank you so very much, Jodie, for your story, your efforts, your risks, and for sharing your hopes. I hope you will return to BC. I told you earlier, this is a story site, not a writing site, but for all that it does (for those of us who find gender and its discovery a central part of our attempts at stories) provide a welcoming place (More so than the 'writing sites' that see this as only a weird gay lit). You may not get as many comments, because you are taking people by surprise, but I believe there are many that appreciate what you are doing.

Love; Seek Joy;
Jan

PS. If you would like to contact my email is [email protected]