Just when I was feeling a bit down, I sold Checking into Sodom to Less than Three press. The story was supposed to be about Random Acts of Kindness, but turned out to be about a series of events put into very deliberate motion. It was originally 11k, but stretched out to 18k after a rewrite. The new bit includes a scene where the main character, who rides on the rodeo circuit, has to sell his horse. It had been injured and while it had healed to a point where it could be ridden, but not for as a roping horse.

My dad sold my horse when I was in Japan. He got hurt shortly there after. He got tangled in some barb-wire. My dad said that he healed up, but the woman who bought him took a wait and see instead of a get him to the vet and the wound got infected. He said that the horse was still sound for children if never an adult’s weight again, and I’d like to think the horse went on to a long and happy life with the two girls who he’d been purchased for, but I never asked because I never wanted to learn the truth. Going to Japan cost me a lot, but I came back ready to be the person I am today and if I’d stayed up north so that I wouldn’t have to leave my horse, I might not have made the changes in my life I needed. And he still could have gotten hurt. Horses are big animals and if they get hurt and they’re in constant pain, there’s only one humane act to take.

This means the novellas that I wrote in the fall of 2014 now has a .716 batting average. It started with Red Lettering and over the next two months I wrote seven different stories ranging between 17k and 33k. Black Shades sold to MLR’s Christmas anthology, Old Traditions sold to Loose Id, Before the Snow Falls (the dead walk)  is coming out on August 5th, and now Checking into Sodom is coming out through Less than Three as well.