This story was created primarily through a very simple longing spawned from watching too many Tim and Jerry cartoons. That sentiment being: "Anthropomorphic storks are awesome. Why aren't there more stories about anthropomorphic storks?" And so I was forced to make a story simply to fill a niche that may very well have a fanbase consisting of just me.

Sadly, it ended up being around 10K words. This is roughly double the length of any standard zine submission, so publication just wasn't going to happen. Despite the length, it attempts to be a straightforward, snappy story.

Both Miyazaki and Pratchett had significant influence on how I attempted to present the world, the former in terms of setting, the latter in terms of dialogue. I'm still not wholly satisfied with the human side of the story in terms of setting and personalities. I feel that I could have fleshed them out a bit more, as the storks and their home tend to steal the show just a bit. On the other hand, the traditional self-identified furry will likely consider that a virtue of the story, rather than a fault!

There's almost nothing in life you can do that's more important than raising a child. Yet we consider it a right, and not a duty or responsibility to be proven competent for. I don't think this will ever change; the horrors of the Nazis have turned humanity off from eugenics quite thoroughly, and this is perhaps better than the other way around. But there are disadvantages to this state, and sadly it's primarily in the form of our sins and problems passed down into the hands of our children. Think about the child, and not just the lonely void in your own soul, before you try to become a parent.

And for the record, both Earl Grey and Lady Grey are delicious, but I prefer the latter.

The story I'm uploading as my first to this site is one I'm rather proud of. As far as non-comedic, slow-paced prose goes, I feel that I really hit the top of my form. While it was rejected from all major SFWA-standard zines, it received a fair few compliments on the language in the process. That's the first reason I chose this as a starter, with the second reason being that I hear that transformation themes are quite popular.

Reasons for rejections largely boiled down to 'Too slow and vague.' Which is, to be fair to the editors and slush readers, quite true. It's not a fast-paced, action-filled, black hat/white hat story at all. However, the ability to utilize patience and subtlety in storytelling is something I very much admire about European and Asian cinema, something I feel that Hollywood has very much lost touch with. At the end of the day, the story be what it be, and you either like that sort of thing or you don't. This one isn't for the adrenaline junkies.

In retrospect, I would have liked to include more details on the cultures involved and fleshed out the setting properly. However, word counts are tight in magazines, and my tendency is to go over them anyway. It's entirely possible that if I'd done more research I would've only come up with details I hadn't the room to include in any case. That limitation is what I would consider my number one barrier in short fiction, really.

The moral lesson here is one I revisit in many of my works, one of an anti-black-and-white viewpoint. You're left to decide for yourself if the protagonist did the right thing or not. Whatever forms we end up living with will always have drawbacks as well as benefits, and one must remember that and not get too caught up in the idealization of the other.