Thank you Marcus and Boccaccio for your responses.

I see what you mean about e-mails outnumbering reviews as two more encouraging messages arrived today, but no reviews. The message I got before my post on the forum didn't specify which of my two stories they liked (hopefully both), but the two today complemented "Truth be told," the shortest, and what I thought poorest of the two. Since the much longer (and I thought better) "Families compete," has had more readers overall, it is some indication that an author can't necessarily be a good judge of his own work in terms of broader appeal.

My comment about my lack of character development that Boccaccio mentioned is one of several areas for improvement that I am working on now that my goal is to write stories for the enjoyment of readers other than myself. I admit to getting lazy over the years of off and on writing for just me, and the two stories on site were written, but for rather hastily drafted endings, before deciding to join your ranks. One day I had never given a thought to publishing. Two days later, after discovering this fine site, I became so nervously enthused with the idea that I felt compelled to jump in right away, rather than holding off till a new story (or substantial revisions) could be completed.

My biggest fear now (with my current story in progress at 150K and the end barely in sight) is that I may beat the interest out of future readers with too much explanatory content in my newfound zeal to create living people and clearly imagined surroundings in the minds of my readers.

Chum