Saturday, May 16, 2015

 

New Short Story has Journalist as Main Character

I am busy working on a couple of short stories to enter in the Springfield Writer's Guild contest this year starting in July. My goal is to always submit two short stories and honestly, I'm running behind.

This year, I'm working on several stories, all of which I see in my mind as chapters in longer novels. The working title of the first one I want to finish is, "The Church Critic." Here is a taste of how the short story/future novel chapter begins:

Don Bigby pointed his thick index finger and his fat cigar directly at my face.

"I'm choosing you for this new assignment. Our readers love you and I'm adding this to your regular beat. You can thank me later," he said followed by a smokers cough.

Bigby's thick fingers were crowded together on his hand. This helped explain why he typed with only his index fingers. His cigar was more chewed than smoked. In fact, he smoked one cigar a day but ate through two a day.

"Do you have a list of places you want me to visit for this column?" I asked while looking at the large city map on the wall.

"Son," said Bigby, taking the half-eaten and wet cigar out of his mouth. "I pay you to make good decisions on the order of your site visits for this column. All you need to know is your deadline is Tuesday at noon and this new column will run on page one."

At looked at the mock up page in my hand. “So we are calling it, 'The Church Critic' and this will be a weekly review of local churches," I said. “You know, I’m agnostic. I don’t do church.”

"Perfect. It is met to be a critical review,” said Bigby. 

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