Last year I wrote a short story about a fictional Tokyo artist named Seiji Matsuda. The story finished and published ("A Rainbow Feast: New Asian Short Stories", edited by Mohammad A. Quayum), I turned to other writing projects. Seiji, however, wasn't through with me. So I set the other projects aside and began working on expanding his story into a novel about his life. It is now about half finished, and what a challenge it has been.

A short story is one thing; a novel is something else again....

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