Today's stories came from Alice Adams' final collection of short stories The Last Lovely City.  I picked this book up at a used bookstore because the title and the cover caught my attention and this particular bookstore had an enormous selection of Alice Adams' books.  I've never read any of her novels or short stories before, but thought Short Story Month would be a great time to introduce myself to her work.  I selected two stories pretty much at random from this collection.  I read A Very Nice Dog and The Visit.  Both were very simple stories and at first, I was a bit disappointed, even thinking that A Very Nice Dog lacked plot.  But what I realized as the stories marinated and followed me around throughout my day, is that Adams was a master of the subtle story.  A Very Nice Dog was not at all about the dog, but the narrator's own loneliness and longing to connect with an acquaintance.  She denies any kind of romantic interest in this man, but the whole story is her plotting to find ways to spend time with this man, even going so far as to arrange for him to adopt the very nice dog of the title.  This story does not follow a traditional story arc, but instead follows the narrator through her denial.  It is the type of story I strive for in my flash fiction.  Subtle and capturing a mere moment important for the main character.

As for my own writing, I continued work on my bagpipes story and my word count is up to 1125, putting my on track for meeting my monthly goal.  Now I'm going to go watch some more Olympics.  Check back in tomorrow for more short story g