Songs of a Wanderer

For the past few days I've been working on a short story, one featuring my wandering "Man of the River People". The first one I wrote in which this character, Thon, appeared can be read at Short-Story.me. It's "A Song of Aine".

I have a thought about a follow on to that one, but it needs to marinate a bit more.

But, he's a wanderer, so there is ample scope for tales to be told. Someday I must find out what set his foot on the road away from the River in the first place.

I wrote a story of his wanderings with the intention of submitting it to Short-Story.me. They have a maximum limit of 2,000 words for the short stories they publish. My tale came out a couple of hundred too long.

So, on to the craft of tale telling. And it's an aspect I enjoy. The paring away, the tightening of the language, of the action. All the while hoping there's still a story left at the end of the day.

It took a few passes and I was able to rid the tale of the clumsiness that sometimes creeps in when you're not looking. Taut as a bow string.

The text editor I was using informed me I had 2,000 words to the story. There's a rightness to that - something about being just on the edge.

Of course, Microsoft Word informed me I had 1,999 words. Sigh.

So, given I believe Short-Story.me use Word (that's their preferred format in which to receive submissions), I added a single word.

Off into the world has gone my "A Song of Danard" - I'm hoping they'll like it and publish it.

We'll see.

In other news, my Year of the Dragon, Special Edition Cross fountain pen arrived today. More on that another day.