Oh Maaaaaannn....

I just finished writing a most satisfying story. One of my favorite things I've written in a while. (I know, that sounds lame, doesn't it? Hell, it's true, and there's no other way to say it.) It's cracking me up so much. It's a little controversial, but I'm not sure if it's too much so.

I had to send it to my friend Curtis. He's a fantastic writer that I met when he was my manager at a restaurant in Milwaukee. He's also an English teacher. Now he's working at a winery in the Napa valley. Lucky. I think he's the best person to read it right away. I have to have someone read it right now. There's lots of someones to read it, I just know that Curtis will. And with a trained eye.

Having him read it will be as satisfying as it can get right now. My wife likes it, and surely gets it, and that is satisfying--she's a writer, too--smart, my editor, an opinion I trust and rely on (most times)--but she has to live with me, and I read her a lot of my stuff, and she reads a lot of it, and doesn't read a lot of it, and you know how it is when someone who loves you reads your stuff... We need other opinions sometimes, too. So my wife liking it is satisfying, certainly, but only to a point.

I have to wait for those wonderful editors of fabulous flash fiction at EDF to wade through the slush to get to it, after, of course, they've made a decision on one of the three stories I already have submitted there, before it can be a truly satisfying ending to the joy of writing it.

For now, my hopes are on Curtis.

Unfortunately, he may actually be on the road from Milwaukee to California right now. If that's the case, I doubt he'll have time to read it. Maybe. Five minutes. Maybe at a rest area, or in the airport, or somewhere anyway, however he's traveling. It's like having an itch I can't scratch. Hurry, Curtis! Hurry!