In the last semester of my BA, I took a writing seminar on taking risks. Our assignments were completely open ended—we were allowed and encouraged to write whatever we wanted, as long as we could point to some sort of risk that we took. I nebulously knew that I wanted to write something in second person, and I started toying with the opening line of “Spaceship Joyride.” I ultimately didn’t write the story during the seminar, but I kept going back to that opening line—I really loved the sound of it.

I had a lot of fun writing the corporate-speak that MacLeish uses. While I haven’t worked in super-big corporations, that sort of language seems to have so penetrated all work spaces that it’s unavoidable. And it’s always eye-rollingly ridiculous. For this story, I tried to imagine how corporations would take advantage of being able to copy (and copyright) human consciousness, and yet I am sure that no matter what changes the empty buzzwords will remain the same.

I’ve always wanted to write a sequel to “Wednesday’s Story,” which ends with Wednesday, one of the personified Days of the week, having committed a crime. I wanted to follow up on that. On the consequences of her actions. But since the purpose of the personified Days is to tell stories, I knew I needed a story for them to tell within that larger story. I didn’t want to return to my old trick of using another reimagined children’s rhyme to frame the larger story around.

Despite being from a big family, I realized I hadn’t written many sibling stories, and I wanted to change that. I loved getting to explore the sisters’ relationship and follow how it changed and grew over the course of this story. The plot grew out of my suspicion of colonization stories, and of the assumption—still prevalent in more science fiction than I’d like—that there’s a non-problematic way to colonize. And, while I admire the ethos of “leave no trace,” I also wanted to explore its limitations.

This story had its roots in something I saw years ago, an article on the strangest things people had ever turned into New York Subway lost and founds. (Caveat: this story originated so long ago, that I may not even be remembering the details of its origin story correctly. Do you think I can turn a lost inspiration into a lost and found?) Anyway, I remember there being a lost and found snake.