Frequent readers of my site know I like to write a post about the inspiration for each of my published stories.  While often no single thing inspires a complete story, I can usually pinpoint one or two things that were important inspirations.  “My Mask, Humanity,” which posted today at Daily Science Fiction for free online reading is an exception. 

I don’t know where this story came from.  One day, the idea of guy who could mimic other people popped into my head, along with a first line, “My mistress calls me her mimic.”  The rest of the story fell together quickly after that, and I sat down and wrote the first draft of “My Mask, Humanity” in just two sittings.

While I don’t know the inspiration for the story itself, I can say that this story was influenced by writings of fellow Hopefull Monster, Colum Paget.  Colum writes a lot of dark, high-tech stories, and this story follows in a similar vein.  I’m not sure why it went that way—I don’t usually write stories quite like this one—but I’m very happy with the results.  This story also happens to contain one of my favorite scenes that I’ve ever written; I don’t want to say much more because I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but it involves a restroom on Titan.

If you haven’t already, head over to Daily Science Fiction and check out “My Mask, Humanity.”  It will be the featured story on the DSF front page over the weekend of October 5-8 and can be found their archive after that.  I hope you enjoy it.