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This story took a long time to birth. While the opening arrived easily enough, I put it away for over two years before the rest of the story deigned to follow.
All I knew from the start was that the kiss wouldn’t be a traditional romantic kiss. That, and that the plants were slightly magical in some way.
Everything else I unearthed laboriously, one sentence at a time, never quite getting a glimpse of the entirety of the story until it was actually done. Every time I thought I’d had a breakthrough (going, “Ah ha! NOW we are nearly at the end of the story! The kiss will surely happen soon and we will be DONE!”), the story fooled me and twisted aside, shying away from that kiss that I was desperate to untangle, to uncover, to understand.
So I guess, in a lot of ways, the process of writing this story actually mimicked the experiences of the protagonist: she too spent years getting close to answers and then falling away again, nearly understanding before having it slip through her fingers like water, before finally, finally, stumbling in a quiet, accidental moment on the answer.
Does art mimic life, or does life mimic art?
A silly question, of course, because the answer is: both.
(Also, can I please have some magic plants?)