Talk:Bedtime/@comment-29597457-20160812035352/@comment-5391270-20170717094615

Hi Deus. Thanks for the thoughtful comment. You hit the nail on the head with regards to the other stories. Really, this was a stand alone piece based on a memory I have from when I was a child. There are a couple moments I altered - we didn't move! - but most of it is as I remember it. Pretty sure I was suffering from sleep paralysis, but the memory is still a traumatic one.

I originally shared this story on No Sleep. It was early days for me, and while I've been writing all my life, Bedtime was the first one I shared with the public. When I received some positive feedback, I thought people would be interested in a second experience I had. That's the second story and it is absolutely a throwaway piece, not originally intended to stand alongside the original story. It's more of a little coda. However, after this, I started to think "what if it wasn't sleep paralysis?", "what if it was real?", "and what would happen if that thing came back now that I'm an adult?". So parts 3 - 5 are speculative pieces about that. But this was still before the original story went truly viral. I was learning about sharing work on the internet as I went. Not that many people were doing it, so I didn't have many people to learn from and so made the mistake of just putting out some underdeveloped stories to see what would happen.

If I could do it all again, there would be two versions of this story. The original short story, and the novel, which is a very different animal. But, these stories exist. I didn't know they would become so popular, if I did I would have taken much more time with them. Now, I write full time (fiction and freelance). I take my work seriously and commit to releasing engaging stories as much as possible. Out of the 40 or so stories I've released, I would say 10 of them were put out without much thought. Some of these are popular, but several readers have pointed out as you have that there is a drastic difference in quality. The unfortunate thing is that I can't take those stories back. I can rewrite them, but I don't want to replace the originals where they are on the internet. They're a kind of time capsule. A record of a struggling writer trying to learn. They might prove more useful in that sense going forward.

In any case, thanks for your thoughtful comments. Sorry it took me so long to respond :)

~ Mike