A year ago, I kept my nose in one story: Rain of a Southern Sun. Today, I have more good starts on promising stories than I can handle. Today, I finally got walled in with critique stacks. I had to jump to escape my office.

in the editing/reworking stage:

• Double-Take: Mr. Salley is late for an important meeting when he bumps into an interesting character from his past. Now, as then, he is faced with a choice, continue or follow.
   
• Change: Skyyt (pronounced "skit") has lost everything to a Ponzi scheme. His next piece of art is dedicated to the man who orchestrated the crime against him.
   
• Sugar Rush: God chose Tricia at the fair, of all places. She's sure of it. The fortune-teller must have God's message, right?
   
• No Good Deed: Mr. Proctor didn't exist this morning but now he does. Normal life was what he wanted but the transition from there to here proves more difficult than he imagined. And the dogs keep looking at him.
   
• The Need to Split: Gunlon the Dwarf is good at what he does and has never had to consider what sort of vacation might suit him until now.
   
• Man in a Box: There has to be a reason a man awakens in horrific pain in a tiny room with no windows, no door and lit by an invisible source. Maybe if he figures out why there's a chicken on the other side of the wall.

There may be a couple more hidden somewhere. I know there is a drabble-length story in the works, but I'm not lumping those into the same batch.

When I went to the grocery store today -- a super store -- I picked up an accordion file folder where I'll keep all in-progress works and their associated notes. My book bag has always been spacious, but now that I have my thin Mac, I have even more room, so doing so shouldn't be a problem.

Unfortunately I need to carry some non-writing-related work into the weekend and Nadine and I will be belatedly celebrating our 20th Anniversary, so I may not have as much time as I would have hoped to make substantial progress on one or a few of these. (I hold out no hope for making progress on all of them.)