I’m working on a collection of stories and am almost done with it. All the big things are done, and the little typos and dropped balls have come to haunt me like a pernicious puppy, all nips and bites and growls. Here is a misspelled word, there is a wrong page number, and so on. This phase of publication gives me headaches. Very detail-oriented, and it seems that no matter how careful I am an error or two will creep into the final text. On that note I’ll get back to work, and hopefully I will be done with this process within the next day or two.

I’ve started reading Reservation Blues, by a Native American writer named Sherman Alexie. I read it some years ago and enjoyed it then, so I’ve come back to it to take another look. Of the dozen or so books of his that I have read, this is my favorite. Native people, magic, and funny characters trying to get ahead in the game we call life. I’ll keep you in the loop as I read it.

I have started working on a longer short story, simply because most of my stories are the same length and I wanted to try something longer. So far so good, and I am crawling forward.

I have read books on writing by writers whose works I respect, and they all say ‘do what works for you.’ So now I am trying to find what works for me in a longer story…

This story takes place in a forest and a nearby house and follows the exploits of two brothers as they explore the woods after a windstorm. I haven’t gotten farther than that, but I’ll let you know how I progress as I go.

We are a mid-sized bookstore; we sell speculative fiction books and magazines. That is, horror, science fiction and fantasy. Our staff is diligent in reading and recommending these books to patrons. We are open ten hours a day, seven days a week.