I thought it would be fun to blog about Unfinished Symphony while it was being posted, but I'm not sure I like the way the blog is turning out. Sounds like I'm just complaining about too few comments (like there ever could be enough). So let's try something else.

Truth is I spent hundreds of hours on this story. I wouldn't have done that if I didn't get something out of the creative process, and I do. Sometimes it was hard; this story really took far longer to write than it should have because I had a hard time dragging it out of me. Put another way, my muse apparently decided to take a lot of time off. Maybe she went back to Greece to visit her family, I don't know, but she sure wasn't here lots of times when I really needed her.

The story itself is one of transition, but it's not the kind of transition you find in Rules are Rules or Show Me the Money, or for that matter, any Vicki Tern story. The first two are joyful romantic comedies, and you all know what kind of stories Vicki writes (I've loved many of them).

In fact, Unfinished Symphony was inspired by a videotape I saw that documented the transition of a real person I know who is featured on Lynn Conway's site on Transsexual Successes. (http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TSsuccesses/TSsuccess...
- no, I’m not saying who it is). One scene in particular, in a therapist’s office after SRS and facial feminization surgery had been completed, just blew me away. The new woman was simply thrilled about how things were going, and could hardly contain her joy and excitement. As she talked, literally bouncing up and down on the couch in her joy, you could also see the wife. She was exactly the opposite, curled up into herself, looking as if she had just received a diagnosis of terminal cancer. The difference between them couldn’t have been clearer and it was obvious that the new woman was absolutely clueless about the effect her transition had on her wife. This demonstration of utter narcissism, great joy and obvious pain made me start to wonder. Unfinished Symphony is what came out.

I hope it's not a grim story and lots of times writing it was a joy. There are wonderful scenes and insights about people and life that just made me feel wonderful, and I'm pretty sure you'll react to them the same way. The characters are basically nice and I like them. It's the situation that's difficult. But one thing I do love about writing long stories is that I get to spend lots of time with my characters so I get to know them. Sometimes they surprise me, sometimes I surprise them.

Sometimes, I hope we all conspire to surprise you.