Progress the size of mice, from men.

Perhaps, that's an unfair affirmation: I have made progress, honest mother! Can you not see such in my earnest face? Although, it has been mostly in a new direction, so perhaps I should still clean up my bedroom...

As in, I have completed the short story Litter Life, and sent a manuscript out to a journal to see if they'd delight in publishing it.

The manuscript writing itself was an interesting and arduous task: I'd festooned the story with different font styles, keen on stressing the boundaries between the norm and the acceptable, and all these other grandiose sounding propositions which boil down to "me like font!", to be faced with the stark reality of: "everything size 12, times new roman".

I have no qualms with good ol' Timey: I mean, romans are from my back turf, we're good bro! But, everything everything, as in every single -yes.

So, I undressed the story -roughly, ripping its clothes of fonts and effects, leaving it in the stark, naked "blueprint" format that a manuscript must be to be accepted.

Then, with trembling legs and shivering nipples, I sent it to the decided upon editorial, only a little cover letter and the perennially popular 50 word bio (that was a tricky one to squeeze in) for company, in the hopes that they'd give it some clothes worthy of its quirky physique.

For, after all, that's all many of us can really ask for: hope, to be accepted for what we are.

Your decidedly not naked writer,

Stefano Ronchi