2010 went out with a roar, leaving me happily stranded in New York with the opportunity to spend another few days with family. 2011 has started with the same white roar, as I'm moving in to Day 2 of Snowpocalypse Chattanooga. The university is closed, and I am ignoring work I should be getting done in favor of lounging on my couch with hot cocoa, writing like a madwoman.
I know it would be wrong to wish for a two-month blizzard just so I can get some concentrated writing done...but I'm tempted.
Surprising myself, I sat down to wrestle some new poems into the world, and instead have two brand new short stories. They're very short for short stories - probably closer to flash - one at just over 1,000 words ("The Reader"), and the other just under 2,000 ("Stacked"). I could probably harangue them into longer form, but I like them in their current spare forms. I think I'm going to send them out for critique and maybe to a few lit mags, see if they gain any traction, and hope that these seeds grow into a short story collection.
But for now, while the snow is still making my parking lot look beautiful, I'm going to ignore my looming responsibilities a little while longer and write some more.
