I did it today. I started a new work. After church, after lunch, after reading ten pages in Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life In Letters, after my weekend long walk, I sat in a tired state at my writing station in The Dungeon. I played a few mindless computer games, then knew I needed to be about my second career.

As I reported what might be first in my last post, I started work on “Kicking Stones”, a short story dealing with teenage grief. Last night I wrote an outline on this, as well as a second short story that’s on my mind. Both of these seemed fairly well developed, more so than I expected when I sat down to do the outline.

So this afternoon I began work on “Kicking Stones”. I wrote one or two sentences and immediately began playing another game. I went back and wrote a paragraph, then played another game. This went on for half an hour, until my mind was truly engaged in the new work. I spent an hour and a half of good writing on it, and wrote over 1,200 words. I’m not sure how long it will be. At least 2,500 words, which is Amazon’s new lower limit for items published. The poem that I plan to include in it is already written. I ran it through one critique site some time ago, and will post it at another site tonight for a second set of critiques.

People who posted reviews of the other two in this series said they weren’t exactly short stories, but rather memoir-type pieces. I suppose that’s true, though I don’t know what else I could call them. But for this one, I think I figured out a way to work a major metaphor into it. I didn’t quite get there today, but should tomorrow.

Based on the progress I made today, I think I can finish it in three days. Of course, then there will be editing, cover, etc. So, while this will be published a whole lot faster than a novel, it still won’t be instantaneous.