I’ve just published my first piece of fiction!

The story is titled, Weathered Pearls, and is about two young brothers who are home alone at their farm when a sick man collapses off of his horse outside their cottage.

I wrote the first draft several years ago, then came back to it last winter and rewrote it with the help of my editor. It’s been in the queue as “done and ready to publish” for several months, so I’m excited that I finally have the infrastructure setup to publish it into the wild.

Weathered Pearls is ~1500 words (3-5 pages of a normal book). I’m going to start small and gradually build up to pieces that more closely resemble a novel. Once I begin publishing longer stories, I’ll continue to break them up into chapters small enough to consume in one sitting. I’m starting with a 1500 word target, but I’d love feedback on if this feels too short or too long. I want each chapter to feel long enough that you can get into the story, but short enough that you don’t hesitate to click into the email when you see it arrive in your inbox.

Weathered Pearls is also the first chapter in a new collection of short stories I’m calling Tales of Twilight. Here’s the description of this story collection taken from my website:

Mortality is easy to neglect. Nature programs us to cope with the inevitability of our own death by burying it deep within the layers of our consciousness. Occasionally, a hand of the shadow breaks through, squeezing and twisting our minds, forcing us to take notice. We act. Then we forget, as the hand is pushed back down and buried under fresh soil.

Many people have searched for the meaning of life, but clarity only comes in those final moments, when we walk the dark path that we all must walk.

You can click on the button below to read Weathered Pearls. Once you finish, I’d love if you wrote a comment about what feeling you were left with at the end of the story.

**Note, you’ll have to come back to this email and click on the comment icon to comment—my website doesn’t have comments built into the story pages.

Read Weathered Pearls

Signing off from Jacksonville, Florida.

Enjoy the journey,