The Snippet Below . . .

. . . ends at about 2,500 words into the story. So at this point, the action is only really starting to begin, and the real action is still well ahead. I can shorten the story by having it mainly focus on Covey and telling it from his point of view. I will probably do that as much as is feasible, but it's still going to probably go over five thousand words. Maybe well over it. Tying it closer to Covey probably means it won't reach ten thousand words, which is likely a good thing.

I decided not to shelve this story right away, simply because I don't have another more marketable story to work on at the moment. And shelving is not the same thing as terminating a project. Far from it. I have a couple of projects shelved that I have every intention of getting back into.

But for now, I'll just keep working on this one and see where it goes.

On the bright side, I'm actually working on a story my wife can read (at least except for maybe one scene), which is a nice change.