The World By The Numbers

"As You See The World" was published in the January/February issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, my second publication at EQMM, and the fourth story I’ve had published overall. As I've done with previous publications, here are my notes on the story's creation.

(Spoilers, if that matters).

I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, north of Los Angeles, and by the early nineties, the walls were closing in. The traffic, heat, and noise were on my nerves. I was writing comics at the time — it wasn't going well — and day-by-day I grew more anxious and broke, at times reluctant to leave my apartment. My apartment's air conditioning was inadequate, but opening the door and windows subjected me to traffic noise, particularly trucks that rattled past my front stoop from sunup to sundown. In my story, when Mía imagines people in their houses buzzing like wasps, she echoes an anxious vision I had of seeing through the wall of the apartment building that loomed over my house.

I spent most of those years in a defensive crouch.

As far as crime went, I never felt especially threatened. I owned nothing worth stealing, my wallet was empty, and I was big enough to ward off casual violence. My future wife, Rita, was not so lucky, and in the span of a few months she'd both been mugged and had her car stolen. Those encounters inspired us to leave the L.A. area forever, and also planted the seeds for what would become "As You See The World."

In my story, Mía has her car stolen when she leaves it idyling at the curb, and the same thing happened to us. Rita left the car running in her father's driveway, ran in to drop something off, and came out to find it gone. It was disorienting and infuriating, and Rita's rage and instant obsession to recover the car and revenge herself on the people who stole it mirrored Mía's.

There was no dog in the car, but there was a gun. And we did eventually steal the car back, when it turned up on the street several weeks later, after running back to the house for the spare key. Previous to that I had spotted the car elsewhere, and called the police, but by the time they showed up (and for whatever reason patted me down and put me in their cruiser), our car was gone again. There's probably a story to be written about that experience, too.

As with Mía, that brush with crime was the last straw. We packed our stuff, drove to the coast, and headed north until we could afford the rent — just like Mía. It worked out for us, though I'm not sure about Mía. We will find out, as I plan to write additional stories about her.

My notes say I sold this story to Queen on December 7th, 2023, almost exactly one year before publication. It was written over a period of thirteen days in May and June of 2023, taking fifteen hours to complete.

I wrote this story at a transitional time. I was at an act break in a novel I was writing at the time, and had just returned home after living away for several months caring for a family member. I was also about to resume work at my regular job, after they generously afforded me leave to tend to my family. All that angst and worry over helplessness and transitions, and literally how I was seeing the world, doubtless contributed to the story.

Some of my notes:

5/26

Still getting my feet under me after the move. Deeply weary. Got this next short story stood up. Researched pit bull rescue and bait dogs. Poked around old North Hollywood haunts and researched names.

5/30

Found my opening with a conversation between Mía and a cop taking a report about the car being stolen. Interviewed Rita for details of the day and her state of mind.

6/6

Noodled with this while taking a post-first act break from my novel. Spent too much time researching cars and .22 revolvers. Got Mía into her apartment and talking with Rich. Notice that I am writing this at a novel pace but figure I’ll just finish it, see my word count, and then tighten it down to 5K-ish.

6/8

Only a few hours last night as being back on the job is a bit dispiriting. Just took it from the top. I rounded up to my half hour and only managed light revisions and bit less than 200 words, but trying to love myself even so.

6/9

Having a hard time shaking this funk. Short session but I didn’t hate it. Progress.

6/10

Being a Saturday, I made an effort to start earlier than the last several days. Good thing that I did, it was one of those great leap forward days I’ve experienced with other stories, where I got on a roll and finished a story I couldn’t quite re-start for days on end. 2400 words today building on the thousand I’d done before, going to let it sit without a re-read and edit tomorrow.

One of the benefits of journaling my writing sessions is it helps identify patterns. Here I had short, frustrating sessions on the 8th and the 9th, and then a four-hour burst on the 10th that broke the back of the story. This isn't the first time I've experienced this pattern.

6/11

Still exhausted. Re-read and light edits. This is going to need a bit more work than I’d hoped but its got good bones.

6/12

From the top. Hammered out some kinks. Close.

At that point I put the story aside to simmer, and didn't look at it again until I was on a car trip with Rita, a month later. We were returning to visit the place where we'd moved when we fled the Valley, just like Mía. It was the full-circle moment that told me the story was finished.

7/14

Read the story to Rita on the drive, she liked it and I was emotional about it, given that so much of the story was inspired by the escape we made from the Valley decades ago. And I found I liked the story after having not looked at it for a month. Will let it simmer again but I think it’s ready to send out.

I submitted the story to Ellery Queen at the end of July, and 132 days later it was accepted, just a few days longer than the average 127 days to sale I've experienced with this market. Contracts and publication was the usual smooth Dell Magazines process.

Always a pleasure to see my work in print! Ellery Queen has purchased two more of my stories (publication date unknown), and I have a story in the queue with them right now I feel good about. Fingers crossed. Thanks for reading!