The Spoons That Are My Ears!

I've just completed my 600th story. If I had received a penny for every story I've written, I would now have 600 pennies. Yes six pounds in total! Enough to buy a bottle of wine and a small cake. So here I am, toasting myself for this small achievement. Actually what I'm drinking is fruit juice but that's just a minor quibble.

It seems only a few months ago that I was announcing the completion of my 500th story, but in fact that was almost two years ago.‎.. My 600th story is entitled 'The Garden Hoppers' and is wholly realistic, a sort of Saroyanesque nostalgia trip. I'm hoping to make it the title story of a new collection that will be rather different from my usual books. I sent a sample of such stories to a publisher yesterday and now I just need to wait for a response.

So only 400 more stories to create and I'll be done with writing forever! Let's work it out... 600 in 22 years equals an average of 27.272 stories per year, so another 14.7 years to go... That means I'll be finished in the year 2026. Yippee!

And after I've toasted that, I think I'll drink another toast. The Libyan rebels have entered Tripoli and the future is finally looking bright for that country. So I would like to propose a toast to rebels everywhere, to true rebels, those with a just cause, not to criminals and looters; to rebels and dreamers and those courageous enough to put their lives or reputations at risk for what is right; to the mavericks, the individualists and the challengers of stagnation; to the thought-experimenters, the lateral philosophers and eccentric geniuses who refuse to take the easy way; to all you heroes. Cheers!