Tim photo © Alptraum
Creek photo © David Coleman

Tim’s Shiner is the first story in Diary of a Misfit and was one of the reasons Diary of a Misfit was written. As a writer, I had to get the story out. And it proved to me something I had not thought possible before … I could actually write a short story with the right circumstances in place.

I am a novelist by nature. My ideas don’t come in short work form, but are always more geared to longer works. I have attempted short stories in the past, but nothing satisfied me because I wanted to write the full story and stopping short felt incomplete, and so the story died a swift death while an inner battle raged.

Tim’s Shiner was different. I had already written the full story … well, I’m still writing the story, but working on book four in the series … and I didn’t feel the same need to complete the story because I looked at the short as a scene and not a complete work. I also already knew the characters well, and that might be a part of why other short stories are hard for me to write. The characters develop as I write, and I get to know them along the way. A short story doesn’t have enough words for me to become properly acquainted with the characters.

And Tim’s Shiner was something I had wanted to write for a while. A chance to give a bit more of Katie’s best friend’s background, and to show their relationship in a younger time. Before everything changed.

The teaser: When her best friend Tim shows up on her doorstep with a black eye, Katie McCabe teases him for being a klutz, until she learns the horrifying truth.

Diary of a Misfit is available now for Kindle. A portion of the proceeds from Diary of a Misfit will go to the Shaka Franklin Foundation for Youth.