In Short

View from Jersey, photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images from the guardian.com:

There are plenty of interesting stories in today’s news, but most seem reruns aired too many times.

Fact culled from a nypost.com editorial: it is estimated that the number of home-schooled children has “risen from 1.5 million in 2019 to up to 2.7 million now.”

Headline from newsmax.com that corroborates the opinion of those who believe WWIII has begun: “US Troops Attacked 50 Times in Month, 46 Injured.”

I’ve completed the first handwritten draft of another short story, the third in a recent stretch of creativity. It was inspired by an article about 681 cliches writers should avoid. I thought it would be fun to write a story using all of them. That has proven daunting, but the number itself provided enough spark for a speculative story. Again, finding a satisfying ending was difficult. Almost all stories of the genre end disastrously for the protagonist. I chose what I hope will be interpreted as funny. I will do another handwritten draft just to slow me down. Back in the day I worked three-hour shifts. It’s now a half hour at a time.

My thanks to the gentleman who donated about 50 or so Russian books, and to Wolf, just back from a ten-day cruise of the Caribbean, who bought ten of them, including one on The Beatles; and to the woman who selected nine, eight of them translations of Erich Maria Remarque; and to the young mom who purchased two thrillers by Heather Graham; and to budding entrepreneur Gareth, who took home two works of non-fiction by Daymond John: Rise and Grind and The Power of Broke; and to Alice, just back from her brother’s wedding, who chose From Potter’s Field by Patricia Cornwell. I am blessed.

My Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Vic-Fortezza/e/B002M4NLJE

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