Snippets of Story: Winter 2024

A glimpse at what I've been working on

Writing-wise, the first half of 2024 was definitely short-story-focused. I was busy getting The Smoking Iron and Other Stories edited and released and finishing my contribution to Through Western Storms. Summer was…not the most productive writing season. Nor was early autumn, but from the end of autumn into winter I found myself s-l-o-w-l-y gaining some momentum in working on—of all things—a novel!

Not the one I really wanted to make a dent in this year. But a novel, nonetheless.

Although I have a number of short story projects in the queue for next year, they haven’t really taken shape enough to share snippets from yet (and I’m undecided whether I want to share in advance from things that are destined for anthologies or contests). So this quarter’s snippets come from the two novel manuscripts that are “active” at the moment, both of which I would love to finish rough-drafting within the next year if I can.

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Last Ride at the Lazy G

{ novel: historical mystery, 1940s }

He wondered wryly if this was the part of dude wrangling nobody told you about—that you wound up feeling at least partly responsible for other people’s feelings, not just their mounts and fishing tackle and lunches, while they were on your hands…that you took on their problems on top of your own. It was like being saddled with a bottle calf: exasperating, but it worked its way into your affections all the same. If the dudes didn’t quite manage the affections, at least they got on your conscience.