Today I stumbled across this article about Common Faults in Short Stories. At times the author is certainly harsher than I think is necessary, but he has a lot of good tips. After reading his list, I couldn’t help wondering if I should rewrite “The Tenth Time” yet again…

I also took note of his advice on being funny:

I think humour only ever exists in something that sets out to be serious. Anything that sets out to be humorous is doomed.

Aha! Perhaps that’s my problem!

My morning writing sessions have been going pretty well this week. It’s certainly much easier to focus when Riley crawls into my lap and sleeps. Before, I had to keep him in the corner of my eye at all times, since I was never really sure whether his whimpers meant that he needed water, wanted to play, or was five seconds away from peeing on the carpet.

But then again, his adorable snuggly-ness compels me to hug and kiss and pet him a lot, which somewhat reduces my productivity. I guess you win some, you lose some.

Speaking of which… A few months ago, I sent one of my stories to Junot Diaz, the fiction editor at the Boston Review whose first novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao has been quite the success both with critics and the public. He responded personally, which is wonderful and rare, and one of his comments was that my story was “strong but young.” (See the win-some-lose-some connection there?)

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