I’m sitting here in my virtual living room, talking to indie author Jess C Scott, who wrote EyeLeash: A Blog Novel, which I just reviewed a couple weeks ago.

Hi, Jess.

Hello there!

Now, EyeLeash is your first book.

It’s my first published book. I have another two or three that literally “see the light of day” on an annual basis, on average.

Excellent! I’m looking forward to reading a lot more from you in the future.

What inspired you to write EyeLeash?

A couple weeks ago, the Little One and I finished The Ruby Key, a youth fantasy novel by Holly Lisle. As you can see, we gave our paperback quite a workout; it was brand new when we started. She—that is, the Little One—then collected 10 items from of the story for a “Book Bag,” a show-and-tell project she and her classmates do in school.

(Her 10 items, in the picture from upper-left to lower-right: a dog, a cat, a vial [partially hidden below the yellow plastic container], a red key [inside the yellow plastic container], a walking stick, the moon, a bell, a giant worm with sharp teeth, a boot, a backpack.)

The Little One’s classmates enjoyed her presentation, and one even asked to borrow the book. But apparently, she didn’t make it very far through. In any case, here are our online reviews of The Ruby Key.

(See especially the Little One’s review, which proves that, yes, I am really smarter than a 5’th grader!)

-TimK

Doesn’t matter, as this post’s subject is a fictional story, “Ilker Drennan” by Donna Gagnon, posted recently at Every Day Fiction. This is a story about a depressed widow who is just barely making ends meet.

I’m doing this post in a new format, an experiment. We’ll see how much I like it and whether I do it again. Every other week (at least that’s the plan), I’ll post a link to an online story. Then I’ll give a free, unsolicited mini-critique. Why? Because I used to critique stories on the online forums, but I got tired of people asking for my free advice and then promptly ignoring it. (I’m not upset with them, because I used to ignore their advice about my stories, too.) But at least this way, when they ignore it, at least I’ll be expecting it.

So click here to read Donna’s story. And then you can check out my comments below.