The best thing about August was that it wasn’t September yet. They all hated September, when the second fertilization of the ears happened. It was backbreaking labor, and everyone had to do it, except for nursing mothers – and there were women who stayed pregnant year after year, the work was so bad. I liked it, but I could never say why. It was an act of violence, and I was all about violence then, all anger and bitter edges, and words that left bruises when I could not leave them with my hands. Everyone knew me too well to let me close enough to hit them, alas; so it was words more than fists, lately.

This is from a story I am just finishing up! Yes, it makes no sense:

The Uniformity of Shame: A wife may return to a variant of the First Art and devour her husband, but from the abdomen forward. Of all the arts, this is hardest. There is no hair, no ant’s bite, no sap. He asks her questions until the end. He may doubt her motives, or she may.

Not an excerpt! But here's the deal. I finished "Mantis Wives," which will be published 8/1 on Clarkesworld. Since then, I have been writing a set of linked flash pieces, and I'm up to seven so far, six in the last two weeks. So technically I have now written SEVEN stories.