author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

The fictionette that went up today is not the Friday Fictionette for May 1. No, that fictionette will be late. Look for it tomorrow. And the one that went up today should have gone up yesterday. I'm just going to blame all this tardiness on the migraine that kept me flat most of Thursday, right? And not mention the book I took to bed to comfort me in my migrainy suffering, and how fascination with the book lasted longer, actually, than said migraine, and...

Oh hey. Did I say all that in my outside voice? Forget it. Point is, what went up this afternoon is a one-time bonus fictionette for the month of April 2015. Like I say in its Author's Note, this one's kind of a gift to thank my Very First Patron for signing up. I had posted a Milestone based on a pledge of $1 that said I'd do something unspecified but special for my first subscriber. Early in April that went from hypothetical to actual. In email conversation, that first subscriber mentioned getting drawn in by "Please to Confirm Your Appointment with BRIGHT SMILES!" and wishing it were longer. And I thought, a-ha!

So now it's about 1400 words longer and leans on a different POV character. And I just realized there is a major logic hole in it to do with what things happen when. Maybe. I'm not sure. I might be wrong. In any case, that's OK because it's totally not obvious except from inside my head, and I ain't saying a word.

Oh hey.

Nevermind! We also have April's Fictionette Freebie, which I decided had to be "The Hole in the Middle of the Block" because I utterly adore Becky and Olga and I want you to adore them too. Please enjoy! You can download the PDF and/or MP3 from Patreon, read the whole thing at Wattpad, or just click over to its manuscript display page here on the actually writing blog.

So tomorrow I'll publish the May 2015 Week 1 fictionette, which involves yummy baked goods and unorthodox sleeping arrangements. I'll try to remember to push a tweet through (which will replicate itself as a Facebook update) so y'all will know when it's up.

And then--then! Then it's back to the long-overdue short story.

Wonder of wonders, a Friday Fictionette that is on time. With accompanying audio, Wattpad excerpt, and everything. Who's impressed with me? I'm impressed with me. Especially since I stayed in bed until an embarrassingly PM hour, all achy from last night's endurance scrimmage and also tempted into devouring a book from cover to cover before venturing forth for a shower and a late start to my writing day.

(The book was Patrick Ness's The Knife of Never Letting Go. It hooked me good and hard, despite moments when I wanted to yell at the author for arbitrarily prolonging everyone's state of ignorance about Important Matters. "It is time to tell you everything," says knowledgeable character, who will promptly be Interrupted By Reasons Or Bad Guys. Otherwise, I loved it. Now I need to hunt up the sequel, The Ask and the Answer.)

In any case. This week's Fictionette is "The Hole in the Middle of the Block," which is sort of a haunted house story, sort of a best friends story, and maybe possibly sort of unintentional Doctor Who fanfic. The cover art photography is mine. I went for a walk around our new neighborhood and eventually found a good stunt double for the house in the story. Also, there's a lovely little nature walk around the teeny tiny private lake just north of us.

That was the first time since the day we closed on the house (April 7, to remind you how long ago that was) that I found time to just walk around the neighborhood and let my feet get to know the place. I need to make time for that more often.

I also found time today to plant seeds! I've got lettuce things and spinach and squash things and cucumber and watermelon and tomato and pepper and corn and beans and parsley and dill and chives all in the soil now. Which is not to say they'll all necessarily come up, mind you. My balcony container gardening style is haphazard and hopeful. I just fill all available space with all the seeds, then I thin what comes up, if anything comes up and needs thinning, if I can bear to thin them. I'm a terrible softy when it comes to thinning.