While this blog is still finding its footing, I do have a tentative schedule in mind. I plan to update it twice a week, both to space out my posts and also ensure myself time to work on the projects I want to share with you. At the beginning of the week, I will post an update on a project currently in the works. This could be a project being edited, being written, or being considered; but none are finished. At the end of the week, I will share finished pieces with you. Some could be up for revision or a future incarnation as a longer story, but all will be beyond the production stage.

Last Thursday, I shared an essay called The Park is Gone. Today, I’m excited to share some information on one of my upcoming stories.

A few years ago, I was charmed by a story about a little girl who made some unlikely friends: crows. She’d dropped a chicken nugget on the ground, and while the feeding was an accident, the crows remembered her generosity. They started to bring her gifts — mostly found objects, like tools and beads, but she kept them all. It was a testament to a crow’s impeccable memory, something proved across other studies, including the fact that crows remember who is kind to them and who mistreats them.

I started imagining a story that took all of those concepts into consideration. What if the little girl deliberately reached out to the crows? What if they became her friends? What if they remembered the people who were unkind to her? That story unfolded itself into The Crow’s Gift.

After a long hiatus, I picked up my hobby of writing fiction last spring. The Crow’s Gift was the second story I finished. It follows a young girl named Tabitha, a lonely girl who has trouble making, and keeping, friends. This changes when she befriends a murder of crows, who she waves at every day on her way to school. One crow in particular acknowledges her presence by cawing at her and flapping his wings. She names him Timothy. One day after school, she feeds him a cracker. The next day, he brings her three stones.

That is where the resemblance to the true life story ends. The Crow’s Gift dives deeper into Tabitha’s loneliness, which is amplified by a lack of friends at school, a mother who tends to disappear from her emotionally, and a bully who only offers her insults and fear. It examines her friendship with Timothy as both solace and protection. It’s a tale of friendship, though I’d hesitate to call it heartwarming.

The Crow’s Gift will be the title tale in a small collection of short stories that I’m currently putting together. I look forward to sharing more of it with you down the road.