I started a short story last night, and it came out quickly enough that I fin­ished it too. This is the first time in years I have fin­ished a piece of fic­tion. It’s really short — like seven and a half college-ruled hand­writ­ten pages — and I don’t think it’s much good. If there is merit, it’s in the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, not in the plot or the lan­guage. But it’s some­thing. I will keep writ­ing and when I get dis­cour­aged, I will look back and say, I fin­ished some­thing; I can fin­ish this, too.