In case you hadn’t heard, I am the Biggest Loser.
I lost the Bet. Â Big time. Â My horse came in last. LAST! Â How did I go from Numero Uno last year to…to…THIS.
The shame. The shame.
So, as a result, I had to write a short story using a title supplied to me by the inimitable Catherine Ryan Hyde.
You will find that story here. All 1,200 words of it.*
If you’ve read WITH OR WITHOUT YOU or maybe you’ve gotten your hands on an ARC of THE VENGEKEEP PROPHECIES, I think you’ll find this is a bit…different from my other stuff. Â My husband, who is my biggest cheerleader, kept watching me out of the corner of his eye for a week after he read it.
Yes. I have a dark side.
I am, however, not alone in my loserdom. Catherine and Kimberly Pauley also lost (leaving Andrew Smith to bask in his non loserness) and they have also written stories as penance. Â Check them out too. Please. Hey, it’s three free short stories. What’s it gonna hurt?
And if you feel like it, leave a comment below to let me know what you thought. Â I don’t do a lot of short stories so feedback is appreciated.
*I was tempted to tweak the title and call it “All of Nature Abhors a Vacuum…But Not Nearly As Much As My Cat” but 1) the rules of the Bet don’t allow for title tweaking and 2) the story has nothing to do with a cat.
