Short and Sweet

The short story is done. That's the interesting thing about the subconscious--you set it to work on something and sooner or later it will serve up whatever it was that you ordered. (Of course, you might have asked for something on the order of apple pie and got lemon merangue instead, but often the things that happen unexpectedly are the best.) I had to spend quite a bit of time last night preparing several mini books for eBay, so it was late by the time I got done. At that point, I still didn't have anything to bring to Moxie today, so I opened a blank document and put fingers to keyboard. I threw out the previous two or three beginnings altogether and used an entirely different POV, who turned out to be the perfect narrator. Next thing I knew, nearly 4,000 words and about four hours had gone by, and I was extremely hungry. I have never had a whole story come out that cleanly in the first draft before, in one marathon session. It wasn't easy to wake up after only three or so hours of sleep and get to my meeting, but determination laced with caffeine did the job. I've run the story by four people so far, and they all reacted exactly the same way to it. I believe something along the lines of "wow" was the consensus. Now that's an amazing feat, just when I needed one! If this story doesn't sell, I'll eat my magic hat.

Now to format it and pick a magazine to send it to.