Whew!

After polishing Candy Conversation Hearts, I submitted it this morning. It felt good to get that one out the door. The more I struggle with a story, the less confidence I usually have in it, but I like this one. It's been a long time in the works. Several years. Which once again proves why writers should keep all those snippets and partially finished stores. Something can always be salvaged. This story didn't change substantially, but it still took a lot of work to make it right.

One of the great things about a short story is that you can have a malicious main character and maintain that despicable personality through the entire work. In a novel, the writer, and the reader, would get weary of it. Who wants to spend 200 pages with someone unlikable? But in a short, it works. That being said, I'm glad to be rid of her/it/him. (I picture the ghost as being female, but nothing in the story indicates a gender.)