Storms and stories...

It rained buckets this weekend. Two kids from my old high-school were burned alive in their car when a drunk driver evading the police rammed them from behind and their car caught fire. It looks like something stomped one of my lettuces too...luckily, it was one of the little ones, not one of the big honking ones that are almost a foot and a half across.

I also finished a short story this weekend called "Animal Person", which is about a girl who is driving home from a house party when she runs over a werewolf that dashes out into the road in front of her. She gets out to see what it is that she hit, and what follows is a battle of Cujo proportions. The title is sort of a pun, since the drunk girl in question is not fond of animals. And while the girl is not an animal person, the werewolf is. Get it? Get it? Ah, y'all are no fun.

I am pretty happy with it, actually, and extremely pleased with myself in a general way for actually finishing something. It's been so long I'd actually forgotten how satisfying it is to lose yourself in a story that you're making up as you go. And short stories are inherently more satisfying than novels on a short-term basis - you get in, get your feet wet, and get out. 5,000 words or less is not a lot of room for elaboration, so if anything, short stories at least teach me how to trim the fat.

I also started a second short story called "Chasing the Guardian", which is about a group of Scottish fishermen who go on a hunt for the Loch Ness monster to avenge a drowned friend (the cousin of the narrator). It's sort of a Moby Dick type story with a little Romeo and Juliet thrown in, since the narrator is engaged to the daughter of the cryptozoologist who is trying to stop them.

I worked a bit with The Book this weekend too, just a few notes on the chapters I'm in progress on, but mostly I was engrossed in this bloody little five-page diversion.

It was fun, too. I forgot it could be fun. :)