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I do want to say a few things, which is that this particular Hugo nomination at this point in time means a lot to me. (1/?)
I drafted the first version of "The Inaccessibility of Heaven" in 2007. At the time, I didn't have the craft or ability to finish the draft, and I left it literally mid paragraph (IIRC mid sentence) (2/?)
Over the years, I came back to the story, opened it, read it, and concluded I still didn't have the craft to finish it. It was quite a bit chunk by then, and it's one of those stories that I wrote as I finally settled into my own voice and lyricism (3/?)
In 2020, life changed. A lot. The pandemic happened; lockdown happened--and not just any lockdown, but a lockdown in the middle of a divorce.
(French divorce procedures are quite long)
(4/?)
(French divorce procedures are quite long)
(4/?)
You can imagine it wasn't ideal. My writing dried up, among other things. It wasn't giving me joy, and trying to get words on the page felt like pulling teeth out, or drawing water out of a well where there was only mud. (5/?)
And there were obviously other priorities. Divorce is never fun; and this was a divorce with young children involved. (6/?)
There came a point where things settled down, and I saw something like the ending of a long tunnel. Like looking on a mountain that had been super hard to climb and finally seeing down--not the rising sun, but that grey, pinkish light just before. (7/?)
And I opened that draft again, and looked at it again. And thought about endings and craft and what it had taken to get to the top of the mountain. And I thought "you know, I can do that. It's not so much to look at that story again".
(8/?)
(8/?)
And it was like... I could see it for the first time. I could see what I needed to do differently. I could see what words I needed to change, what words I needed to write, what things I needed to do. (9/?)
I rewrote that story with a scalpel while juggling paperwork and a thousand other things. I rewrote it sitting at a desk in a house that felt unfamiliar and new, and I drew water of the well and it hurt, but not as much as I thought it would. (10/?)
I didn't expect to sell it. I didn't expect it to be read. I certainly didn't expect it to make the Hugo ballot. Which just goes to show, I haven't learnt that much 
(11/?)
(11/?)
But it did sell. It was read. It is a Hugo finalist. And in a year where a lot of things changed and a lot of them hurt, where I struggled so much with writing and a lot of other things besides, this means a lot to me.
Thank you for being there. Thank you for seeing it. (12/?)
Thank you for being there. Thank you for seeing it. (12/?)
Also, to my friends (and you know who you are): thank you so much. (13/13)
Oh sorry, the story is here https://uncannymagazine.com/article/the-inaccessibility-of-heaven/
