Back to It

Today I began wading through the muck of my writing that was workshopped these past two weeks. I have four stories that need rewrites. And although it’s a wonderful problem to have—so much feedback on so many stories!—the task is as daunting as escaping quicksand. The only thing I felt capable of beginning to struggle out of was a short-short that was critiqued at Squaw’s afternoon’s open workshop.

Overheard at Starbucks: One woman telling another about rude, middle-of-the-night phone calls she’s been receiving. The account involved multiple continents, the FBI, identify theft, and a scorned lover.

Somewhere in the thick of it, woman #2 says, “This is, like, a whole story.”

Woman #1: “It is a whole story.”

How jealous I was of #1 and her endorsing friend, #2. My only consolation is that she took far more words than those in my short-short to spin her yarn.