Yesterday, I had some time before I had to deliver a load of empty boxes to the pumpkin seed place in Fresno so I was able to finish my winter anthology story. I've decided the title will be "Walkabout" because that's basically what this story is about, at least in the beginning. The village where the story begins has a tradition of allowing boys who reach the age of 16 to go on a one or two year walkabout too see other places on the planet and decide if they want to come back to the village and be a fisherman the rest of their life. This story concerns a boy who will be going on a walkabout and his best friend who plans on staying in the village and marrying the girl he's engaged to.

The story takes place some time in the distant future, say a little over 100,000 years from now. It's related to my last to anthology stories in that it takes place on Glandar, but the time frame for this story is about halfway between the other two.

There is a bit of violence and the threat of even more violence. This may be the future, but this little corner of the future is about as backwoods as you can get.

Of course, religion gets kicked in the shins, too. What would a story by me be without a little religion bashing? Not that I'm against religions, they're very important for some people. It calms the masses because a little hocus-pocus mumbo jumbo every Sunday morning goes a long way toward keeping the masses focused on going to work, being good citizens, and coming back next Sunday with a goodly tithe because the preacher still has a few payments on the Mercedes.

I put up a request for a beta reader because the story is over 11,000 words and I'm not certain if it's good enough to put into the anthology. I guess what I'm looking for is a strong critical read, something that Graeme is good at which you might know if you've ever had one of your stories Graemed. As of right now, no one has taken me up on the offer. You know, though, I'm a beta reader myself, so maybe if things get desparate, I'll have to volunteer to give my story a good critical read.

Finishing the story means I now have time to do other necessary tasks, like putting up the next chapter of "The Pastel Cowboy." Chapter 11 is rather innocuous being mostly about Zach and Jeremy. I guess you could say it's a "warm and fuzzy" chapter, if that makes any sense. I can do "warm and fuzzy," honest.

Now, I can get to work on my website project.

Plus, put some time and effort into the Kevin project, which I desparately need to do.

Well, I'd better get some sleep because it's supposed to be foggy in the Willamette Valley tomorrow morning and I hate driving in fog. Bright eyed and bushy tailed and ever ready to drive 60 mph in zero visibility. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?