"The Way of the Heretic"

I always have a large notepad full of story ideas. After completing "Dispatches from The Troubles", I looked it over, and realized that sometimes you just have to be hit by inspiration. For some reason, I didn't feel like I wanted to launch into any one of them. I almost was ready to get back to "Blue Tango", but I felt I needed a little more time.

For some reason, as if my imagination wanted to "clean its palate", a story idea popped into my mind Friday night. I wrote up two pages of notes by way of a story outline Friday evening. I started writing the story Saturday afternoon. I finished this evening. It's 7,000 words and called "The Way of the Heretic". It's a post-apocalyptic story set in West Texas with a couple who left a polygamist sect that was spared a devastating plague because of its isolation.

This is a record for a short story, for me. I wrote it in two days. I've run off a copy and will sit down and proof and edit it Monday night. I like it, too; it has one of the most solid endings I've ever written.