Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Hooray, I finally have that midgrade short story revised to my satisfaction! It involved throwing out pretty much all of the new stuff I'd added a couple of weeks ago, even though I'd thought that stuff strengthened the story at the time. But I do think this new version works better and just seems to have more purpose to it than the older versions. I'm submitting it to a magazine tomorrow, and also submitting it and a YA story to ByLine's Juvenile Short Story Contest.

A few weeks ago, my husband left an old pair of sneakers on the porch after wearing them to mow the lawn, and a toad took up residence in one of them. He was there most of the day for about a week and a half, and we grew rather attached to seeing him there. We named him, not surprisingly, Schubert, since he lived in a shoe. (There was an old toad who lived in a shoe...) Anyway, this week he disappeared. For 4 or 5 days in a row, there was no sign of him, and we assumed he'd just moved on. But this afternoon, there he was in the shoe again! The kids were thrilled and we hope he decides to hang around this time, though it does meaning leaving old shoes on the porch!

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