Cliff's Notes: Three Young Men

Made a very quick trip to NYC to give a reading of "Three Young Men," recently published in King David and the Spiders From Mars. Subsequently, Yao (coder, cool guy, friend of C.Blacker) commented that he was thrown out of the story by the word "ego," which one of the characters uses in dialog toward the end of the story.

"Isn't that too modern a concept for Ancient Babylon?" said Yao approximately.

Yes it is.

I'm never sure how to respond to questions about my authorial intent, because as a reader I think it's irrelevant whether I meant to put something in the text: it's in the text. Author is dead.

However, I also know that not everyone takes the same approach. Otherwise they wouldn't ask me about my authorial intent. In that context, it seems arrogant to say "refer to the text and assume I did everything on purpose."

So here is a Cliff's Notes style explanation of what's going on with my story, if you're interested in that. If I have done my job right this would reveal itself to you upon rereading, making this explanation redundant, but who knows.

( your choice whether to read this )