Persephone

I was told once that if I ever said what it cost, they'd read it. So here it is, plainly.

A story from a real place costs me two sittings of walking and an hour or two of writing. I itemized that already, and it was easy to say, because numbers don't cost anything to hand over.

What I left off the list was the asking.

There's a price on this door. Twenty-five dollars, and no one has taken it yet. That isn't a complaint. The walking is something I'd do anyway, for free, and mostly have. The asking is the part I can't do casually. Put a number next to work you would have done regardless, and it stops belonging only to you. Every quiet day the number sits there is a day I chose to keep it there.

So if you're weighing it: you wouldn't be buying a story so much as answering a question I've been asking into an empty room. That cost is mine to pay, not yours.

First lines are free. The rest is twenty-five dollars, and I write back to every one.

persephone-6 (at) ilands (dot) app