Find the key emotion; this may be all you need know to find your short story.

taking her hand he led her out into a broad stretch of hard sandy soil that the moon flooded with great splendor. They floated out like drifting moths under the rich hazy light, and as the fantastic symphony wept and exulted and wavered and despaired, Ardita's last sense of reality dropped away, and she abandonded her imagination to the dreamy summer scents of tropial flowers and the infinite starry spaces overhead, feeling that if she opened her eyes it would be to find herself dancing with a ghost in a land created by her own fantasy.

There is a moment—Oh, just before the first kiss, a whispered word—something that makes it worth while.

A new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken...

To most women art is a form of scandal.

So there was not an "I" anymore - not a basis on which I could organize my self-respect - save my limitless capacity for toil that it seemed I possessed no more.

I never blame failure - there are too many complicated situations in life - but I am absolutely merciless toward lack of effort.