WIP Wednesday Has a Crush

I'm doing a good bit of editing this week, both the dark, weird novella How We Die in a Hungry Town and a humorous (I hope) short monster tale, "The Monster, the Lake, and Megan Manning".

Some of you may have seen my first line of the later as I tweeted on Friday:

There was a time, many summers ago, when a beautiful seventeen-year-old interrupted my quest to pull the Sleeper from the murky depths of Lake Lotawana.

Pretty clear the narrator had a crush, no?

And then...later in the story:

The Sleeper yanked hard, and the stern rose above the water. Megan clasped the gunwales on either side, her ruby-red fingernails garish against the moon-glow of the whitewashed boat.

"What the hell was that for?"

"I didn't do it. Bass," I said.

She turned on me, glaring. Her eyes flicked to the rod and taut line, then back to my face. "Are you…fishing?"

I might as well have been masturbating, the way she spat the word "fishing." The line jerked back and forth.

"Um…"

"Are you?"

Funny...both the novella and story feature a young woman named Megan. I think Fred (my subconscious) and I need to have a talk. (Did I mention I have two stories due for publication in January with Megans at center stage? Yikes. Somebody get me a baby-name book...)