Doing some math today with my fiction, I discovered I’ve written over fifty short stories since starting writing seriously back in my twenties. That is quite awesome. And a little bit obsessive.

Of those fifty, only six are currently active tales, and only one is a co-op project with another author. I also have a few trunk stories in there, of course, including a rather funny piece I wrote but ended up scrapping after my return to the faith (it just wouldn’t have been appropriate to publish after that event).

Man, I’ve written a lot. The majority of these were written well before I started getting published, which says, I think, something about the struggle to learn this craft. And I’m still learning, of course. I wonder in years to come how I will categorize the stories I’m writing now. Maybe call them my “intermediate” tales — that time when I was starting to enjoy a little short fiction success, but before I had a novel break out? Time will tell.

Stay tuned.