3 Anthology stories, and how they grew!

Hello lovely peoples!
  I've been pretty busy this whole spring, but managed to write 3 stories for the VintageJane Austen story anthology, which released just shortly ago.
 I have also been maintaining my monthly goals, (20k base goal, with Camp NaNos of 30k and Nov. at 50)  in spite of a lot of stress in real life, so I've been feeling good about that.

 One of the reasons I wrote 3 tales to submit for the anthology was I felt stuck on the WIPs I *should* be working on, and so found the idea of hopping though genres with an Austen template a fun one. ;-)

    I started out to set a P&P in the 50's, but that turned into a different Austen, and I was fine with that. The switch-a-roo added a little flair to it, and I think it turned out cute.

Female Cardinal on Pinterest: This it what she looked like! SO Cute!

  Then the problem loomed large in my mind... how to set an Austen in space? Sci-fi is greatly under represented in Austen retellings! J 
   After cogitating on that for a bit an answer leapt to mind, and I had a great fun time slapping that one down. (I was a bit under the gun with the last 2 tales, to finish in time and add their word count to my monthly goal!)

  Thirdly, I looked out the window of the new build and noted a bird perched rather un-movingly on the edge of the dog's water trough, so I went out to investigate. It turned out to be a female cardinal, who acted alarmingly unresponsive to approach.
Since the dog's water trough is a highly unsafe place for a bird of that size to hang out unresponsively, I carefully scooped her up and walked away back into the pasture, where there is a massive brush pile where dozer-work cleared the overgrown brush and trees to get it back to growing grass.

Anyway, on the walk up there I admired the remarkable little lady, and feel quite enchanted of her perfect turn of feather, the way her muted tones looked like burning flames of orange and red were glowing through the brown of her more subtle coat. (Compared to her flamboyant male counterpart.) Since we'd lived in the west where cardinals never seemed to be, I have been very excited to spot the red males flashing about... but I'd never given the girls their due respect.
 That walk made an indelible impression on me, and when I carefully set her on the highest gnarled root I could reach in the brush pile, she flitted calmly even further up, and I knew she was safe. But I was forever changed.
  I wanted to write something with a cardinal in it, and I wanted the cardinal to be a pet.
  I know real wild cardinals make terrible pets because they're simply not wired that way, and to try to force them into that would just be cruel. But in my imagination... how much fun would that be???

  Oodles of fun, and the only place something can happen that can't happen in RL... is my favorite place; fantasy worlds!!!
    The idea seeped in my head, I turned it over and over like rubbing a creek pebble between your fingers... and then the time had come to writ. I painted it vividly, creating a sort of technicolor bright, classic fantasy setting, wherein the cardinal got to be our heroine's pet and companion, as the characters went about their Austen-inspired tale.

   This story turned out the longest by far, and ended up being placed near the end of the anthology; so if you pick it up and read through be sure NOT to quit before you get there, because I want to hear what you thought of the incorporated lady cardinal!!! :-)

   (My only regret is I did not have enough time to work up a cute little sketch of the cardinal for inclusion in the anthology. I'd have loved to share the understated elegance she embodied.)

  So!!! Have you read it? What did you think of all the stories... And what did you think about mine? (You know I want to hear it!!!! :-) )

  And what did you think about the cardinal??