Ten. Ten short stories. Ah, ah, ah.

[mrissa]

Today has been a hard day, a cruddy day--nothing new, nothing unusual, just several physical factors at low ebb all at once. And I was starting to feel like I was not getting anything much done.

And then for some reason, I'm not sure why, I looked at how many pieces of short fiction I've written this year, and the answer is ten. That's assuming I don't finish any of the ones it might be reasonable for me to finish this year, and "Blood Man Calls the Whale" is sort of humming along nicely at the moment and promises, absolutely promises not to metastasize into novelette, unlike some other pieces I could mention. But without that wrapping up in the next fortnight, without anything else finishing itself off or showing itself whole cloth: ten stories. And not a great lack of novel work, either. That's the most since 2003, which means the most since we moved home, the most since most of you have known me.

That is not actually too shabby.

I even like several of them, which is not too shabby either.

So maybe it might be time for me to give myself a little credit here, internally.

Huh.