Yes, I was responsible for “Frame of Reference.”

I think the thought process that went into this one went something like this: “Oh look: it's one hour before the official deadline. I should throw something together lest ana chide me for not entering. After all, I've had a whole month to work on this.”

That's about it. It was a Sunday, and I'd already spent too much of the day writing and rewriting. From the beginning of the WFC I had nothing to write about.

I find stories about loneliness a bit problematic since I find lonely protagonists to be more-or-less non-starters. If you're lonely, it's your fault. Go fix things. Stop whining. The end. Loneliness is either psychological, existential, or essential. Combine, conflate, and convolute as you will. In short: loneliness is for emo and bad imitations of French philosophy/novels/films.

I'm quite aware that there are other approaches to the topic.

Most of the ironic and other twists on loneliness have been done to death and didn't interest me—such as not being alone but being lonely, not being with the one yo want but feeling empty, etc.

This entry was rightly trashed.

Back to the so-called writing process. I began about one hour before what I perceived to be the deadline. I realized that ana was likely not awake to close the entries at the deadline, and I figured 256 hadn't set a rigorous no-more-uploads feature, but I didn't want to be bitten but such potentials. In my haste I didn't bother proofreading it. Thus it was an utter mess. The narrative has a simple and obvious 5-part structure: a setup/intro, a change/development, a turning point (the photo as fulcrum), changes and consequences, and a hit-the-wall “conclusion.”

If I'd had the time—wait: I had the time (a month) but didn't take advantage of it—I'd have used the “found-object” as some sort of indicator of the (some other, not the “protagonist”) lonely soul, perhaps a lost diary or memoirs or paintings or a testament. More interesting would be something that could make even the non-lonely person (reader) feel loneliness. Not just some sort of “I've been there” identification but the palpable experience. Not just the sign or memory indicating that the character feels it, but something to make the reader feel it. But texts aren't operators; readers are not variables to be fed in and spit out through the black book, and one cannot control the reaction of the reader in general, which is to say, you can't account for all readers.

Plus, I was not writing the prose equivalent of the Sibelius violin concerto.

This clearly is not “autobiographical” and not the story of somebody who has “been there.” Along the way I borrowed one or two historical details from things I'd heard or seen. You shouldn't like any of the characters/ciphers. They have no personalities; they have traits.

My apologies for inflicting it upon you.