Random thought: Will it really take two people to run the Office of Govt. Efficiency?

Since I’m running late, we’ll skip the niceties and go straight to the Story of the Week. The prompt comes from the Monterey County Weekly. More on that next time.

He Puts the Dumb in Freedom

“Hey, Mr. McNeil. Can I run an idea by you?”

“Sure, Sheldon.”

“For Black Friday, we can’t undercut the competition, but we could give everything away and call it Black Freeday!”

“That’s not sustainable.”

Undeterred, Sheldon beamed, “At McNeil’s, shopping is easy as one, two, free!’”

“That just sounds like you have a speech impediment.”

“What about, ‘McNeil’s, the land of the free!’”

“And the home of the broke,” McNeil said.

“You really don’t like our ideas?”

Sheldon opened the door and his stunning sister sashayed in.

“I’m Freeda—with two E’s.”

“Black Freeday was your idea?” McNeil asked. “Love it!”

Prompt: Free

Novel News & Notes:

Draft two of Questionable Characters hit a milestone this week. I finally got to the midpoint. It felt like reaching the summit. I’m not sure if that means it’s all downhill from here, and if it is, is that a good thing? Seems like there are at least two ways to interpret that. I’m going to go with the downhill concept that this second half will go much faster and easier than the first half. I’m still convinced there will be a lot to cut, but I’m also still feeling like this draft is much stronger than the first one, with far fewer detours. I threw in some fun stuff this week that I hadn’t thought of when I was outlining.

These little discoveries and insights along the way keep the adventure interesting. Always interesting.

I’m hoping the final product will do the same thing for the reader.

Next week I’ll announce another bookstore appearance, so stay tuned!

Thanks for listening.

Scotty out