The cancelled anthology

My time travel novelette is finally launching in 6 weeks after being on the back burner for over a year! This little novelette has been on quite the journey, now launching as a standalone, even though it wasn’t originally written this way.

The earliest complete version was crafted to sit at the end of specific romance pieces in an anthology, a time travel novelette that (with the consent of the other authors) would incorporate elements from the stories that come before. I’d never seen this done in multi-author anthologies, and thought it would be an interesting exploration of craft.

The actual writing had to be done in three parts. First, I had to write my story up to around the halfway/two-thirds mark to establish the concept and premise. Then I had to wait until all the other stories were written before I could work their elements into my draft and figure out how to get to the end. Finally, I had to provide my fellow anthology-mates with elements from my story to incorporate into the background of theirs to support the time travel concept of my protagonist visiting their settings in the past.

We made it all the way to collating the anthology, hiring an editor, and designing the cover. And then we discovered why you don’t see this kind of thing done in multi-author anthologies.

Days before we were due to prep for go, we encountered a situation where the only way forward for us was to cancel the anthology. It was oddly fitting for Until We Met Again, since the story itself deals with things that suddenly disappear from your life.

This is an abridged version of a post that first appeared on jlperidot.com. You can find the full article on my blog.

Until We Met Again – a time travel novelette

A time traveller absconds to the past in search of her lost love.

One word: my name. A call from Origin through the neural lace grafted to my brain and nerves, connecting me to another place in another time. A reminder of what I’m here to do.

I clutch a bottle cap; its sharp metal edges ground me in the present. It’s funny, don’t you think, to consider this moment the present, as if the past and future I came from aren’t supposed to exist? If you were here, I’d ask. You’d smile and kiss my forehead and say you love my nonsense questions.

But you’re not here. They want me to forget you ever were.

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JL Peridot writes love letters to the future on devices from the past. Visit jlperidot.com for the full catalogue of her work or subscribe to Dot Club for a collection of her tiny stories.