Some people plan to write short stories. Some people also plan out their short stories, much like they plan out a novel, thinking about characters, plot, setting, etc, before they ever put pen to paper or finger to keyboard. I am not one of those people. With only a few exceptions, my short stories have been gifts from my muse that have come almost fully formed from word-one to The End. Some novelists are similarly gifted. Alas, I am not one of them. Novels take much more advance planning and thought. The first short story I had published in a major magazine was titled A String of Pearls , and my muse woke me up one night with the story. I stayed up for several hours writing it all in longhand - have I mentioned my writing career started when dinosaurs roamed the earth? This was also when a bunch of little kids roamed my house, so it was several days before I could get back to the story and see if what I wrote in the middle of the night made any sense. It did. So I typed it and sen...