Writing and Publishing Fiction

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka speaks personally to me. On some levels, I can relate to Gregor Samsa. First, Gregor Samsa is a fictional character, and I am a fictional character. We were both human and then we changed. In Gregor's case, the change was a monstrous verminous bug that fits the description of a cockroach. I am now a mouse.

Gerald Freund, fictional character in mouse form

Gregor Samsa, fictional character
in verminous bug form

I suppose that between the two, you might think I got the better deal. That is only natural. At first glance, many would rather be a cute white and brown mouse rather than a giant cockroach. Keep in mind, however, that cockroaches can do some amazing things like run around without a head and survive a nuclear holocaust. How well do you think you or I would survive a beheading or a nuclear winter? Not well at all.

In a previous post, I referred to a short story that I had written, apparently suffering from a case of cryptomnesia. I have now posted the short story to unpublishedguy.com as an open source fiction story. Any web site visitor can rewrite the story as they see fit or simply add comments for other more enterprising writers to follow.