So I’m blatantly stealing this post format from Melissa Dominic, who did this first and better, but I’m a copycat, and maybe making a list will make things official, which will force me to get things done.

Because, starting today is a little something I call Shannon, Finish Your Damn Short Stories Already, otherwise known as Shannon Has Too Many Works In Progress, otherwise known as Seriously, Just Finish The First Draft. This project was partially inspired by my hard drive and the countless 500 word fragments therein, and also partially inspired by the fact that I am ALREADY behind on Get Your Words Out. Even counting all the things I haven’t bothered to type up from my notebook. Bah!

Anyway, these are short already in progress that I need to finish, complete with the working titles I actually use:

The Not-A-Ghost Story : this one is about high school sweetheart lesbians, and an apartment that is haunted by a specter made of someone’s guilt, in the shape of a person still living. I like the idea of this, but I’m struggling with the momentum and the direction. A lot of this story comes down to trust, but I don’t know if a successful story can be told on an entirely downward slope.

: this one is about high school sweetheart lesbians, and an apartment that is haunted by a specter made of someone’s guilt, in the shape of a person still living. I like the idea of this, but I’m struggling with the momentum and the direction. A lot of this story comes down to trust, but I don’t know if a successful story can be told on an entirely downward slope. Death (Is A Teenage Girl) : Death comes for the protagonist in the form of a diminutive and somewhat cruel teenager, who would rather play cell phone games than clue the protagonist in on how and why she’s supposed to die.

: Death comes for the protagonist in the form of a diminutive and somewhat cruel teenager, who would rather play cell phone games than clue the protagonist in on how and why she’s supposed to die. The Revolutionary War Ghost/Teenager Thing: The one where the disoriented ghost of a Revolutionary War soldier suddenly appears in the bedroom of a high school girl. They proceed to bond over boy trouble and teenage girl drama. Some things transcend the ages.(I pretty much stole it directly from this music video.)

And the following are a selection of stories I haven’t actually written yet, but are just ideas sitting on my desktop in little barely-articulate notepad files:

Wild spirits with animal faces invite unsuspecting humans to their forest tea parties, only once you’re there you can never leave, and eventually you have an animal face of your own! Basically, the story would involve someone’s grand escape.

sometimes known as The Insomniac Story. Someone is putting the stars out of the sky, one by one, which prevents people from being able to dream. The main character(s) set out to put things right.

a little girl meets real faeries in her backyard, and together, they save the forest from a cloud of sadness. Basically I just want to write a faerie tale, shut up, I know.

And my two novel WIPs:

The Asphalt Messiah : I’ve already gone on and on about this one, but it’s basically about teenage runaways and cannibalistic faerie street gangs. I swear it’s better than it sounds. OR IS IT.

: I’ve already gone on and on about this one, but it’s basically about teenage runaways and cannibalistic faerie street gangs. I swear it’s better than it sounds. The Great Molly Worthington And The Good Ship Adventure: If you don’t know what this one is about, you have not been paying attention, because I never shut up about it.

And that’s not even counting the abandoned ideas I still might go back to and resurrect, like the Friedrich story I can’t seem to get right, or some of the novel ideas I don’t even have time to consider beginning to develop, or my secret burning desire to script a graphic novel… I have lots of ideas, but first I need to actually FINISH something.