Functioning in the role as a contributing editor has been nothing short of a challenging experience for me.  Having my short story Mercurial as the spring board for the entire project has created an interesting dilemma for me.  I have a huge emotional and creative investment as a contributing writer but I also need to have the detachment and objectivity of an editor.

As time has passed and the stories have moved a number of times beyond Mercurial I’m better able to step back and function as an editor. Winding the stories together has become an intricate and subtle art form for both the writers, and for Paul and I as editors. Knowing the ins and outs of each story has become an essential skill to ensure consistency and originality between stories.  While at times it has felt a little like the blind leading the blind because at this point Chinese Whisperings is a great untried literary experiment, the darkness is giving away to the brilliant dazzle of unpredictable twists and turns from paragraph to paragraph, story to story, writer to writer. It really has taken on the dimensions of the Choose Your Own Adventure concept which was one of the original inspirations for this anthology.

It has been a steep learning curve and I have been eternally grateful for the support and insights of fellow editor Paul Anderson in managing this transition. I’m holding Paul to his promise that the view from the summit will be amazing.

Next week Chinese Whisperings shares with you a taster of Jason Coggin’s Something Mean in the Dream Scene and his thoughts on the creation of the story and his participation in the project.