Well, I'm not sure about the exact date, but the month currently ending was the two-year anniversary of my starting to write. (Well, my starting to write as an adult, anyway...I'd tried to write quite a bit in early adolescence through early teenagerhood, but I had a ten-year intermission going from my second year of high school to my second year of graduate school.) I started work on the first short story I finished since I was about 15 years old--"How to Light a Cigar"--sometime in early May 2005 and finished it sometime in June.

Between now and then, I've finished 25 other short stories, had a few of them published in various small venues and gone to Clarion West. The productivity rate's nothing to write home about by some people's standards, but compared to the ten years of nothing before hand, it's OK.

So, in the interests of marking the ocassion in some way, a quick list of completed writing projects and their current status:

(1) "How to Light a Cigar" (trippy, horror-ish story, published in "Walking Bones Magazine" in November 2005--the magazine's since been discontinued)
(2) "Levitical Laws" (contemporary fantasy story, still making the rounds)
(3) "All the King's Horses and All the King's Men" (contemporary fantasy story, retired from submissions)
(4) "Dreaming of a Gray Enemey" (contemporary sci-fi story, published in "Afterburn SF" in May 2006--this was one of my Clarion West submission stories)
(5) "The Star Inside the Swastika" (Jewish historical fantasy story, published in "Dragons, Knights and Angels" in January 2006.
(6) "The Right to Remain Silent" (contemporary fantasy story, still making the rounds)
(7) "Crying Wolf" (horror story, retired from submissions, at least for now)
(8) "Eggs of Fire" (weird fantasy-ish story, retired from submissions)
(9) "Testing Day" (alternate-history sci-fi story, retired from submissions, at least for now)
(10) "Johnny and His Robot" (sci-fi humor story, retired from submissions--this was my other Clarion West submissions story)
(11) "Acid Poker" (horror story, retired from submissions at least for now)
(12) "Eternal Life" (historical horror flash, retired from submissions)
(13) "Three Perspectives on the Role of the Anarchists in the Zombie Apocalypse" (left-wing sci-fi horror story, sold to "Afterburn SF" and forthcoming in their July 14th issue)
(14) "Cartesian Coordinates" (historical fantasy story, still making the rounds)
(15) "1938" (sci-fi flash humor flash, retired from submissions at least for now)
(16) "After Sunset" (Week 1 Clarion Wedst story--not yet ready to sumit anywhere)
(17) "Under the Floorboards" (Week 2 Clarion West story--not yet ready to submit anywhere)
(18) "Sing, Goddess, Sing Me to the Stars" (Week 3 Clarion West story--still making the rounds)
(19) "Indoor Sunglasses" (Week 4 Clarion West story--not yet ready to submit anywhere)
(20) "David and His Zebra" (Week 5 Clarion West story--published in "Revolution SF," where it won 1st Place in their Clarion Shmarion humor contest)
(21) "Broken in the Shadow of Mind" (post-Clarion sci-fi novella--still making the rounds)
(22) "Five Against the Darkness" (steampunk fantasy/horror needs-killin' story, still making the rounds)
(23) "Star-Gazing" (slipstreamy alien story, still making the rounds)
(24) "Of Rum, Madness, Thunderstorms and Prayer" (inevitable pirate story, still making the rounds)
(25) "T-Shirts, Tentacles and the Melting Point of Steel" (alternate-history sci-fi story, stilll making the rounds)
(26) "Bless Me" (horror story, not yet ready to submit anywhere)