Old Wounds--New Beginnings (Part I)
A look at the collection that was never meant to be...
The year was 2018 and I was living in West Hollywood but my commute to work, at the time, was over an hour taking two buses. Up until that point taking public transportation was old hat to me. Iām a New Yorka, after all! Taking the subway is a necessity. But that all changed one day when I had an altercation on the bus with a homeless person. It scared the sh*t out of me. I had to call 911. I never wanted to take the bus ever again. I donāt know why, honestly. As a New Yorka, Iāve seen and been caught up in the middle of many things. I consider myself tough. But that piece of my New York toughness just wasnāt there when I needed it. I had been living in California for a couple years by then.
Fast forward to my job who was very understanding. I was able to find a carpool and on days my carpool was unavailable, I was allowed to work from home! A concept I had only heard of and assumed would never become available to me. Whatās funny, tragic, and yet fated, is that not two months after all of this happened to me, COVID was becoming something that could no longer be ignored. My carpool worked for Google, one of the first large companies that shut offices down and converted to work-from-home. Because of that I stopped going into the office as well. This time at home left me with more time to think and to write. And I wrote a lot.
Aside from my discovery of writing 100 word stories, I was writing longer pieces as well. At the time I had no real idea of what I would do with these stories besides share them to my patrons on Patreon. I only had 4 at the time. So really, I was writing these stories for me.
Then so much happened. My wife and I were planning to get pregnant. We drove cross country from California to New York. We bought a house. We adopted a son. We moved to our second home. In that time I honestly forgot all about the stories and the writing I did during the pandemic. It was like they were my release valve. The thing I needed to do to pass the time of being literally stuck inside a one bedroom apartment. It was a time when we went nowhere and saw no one. These stories were my release and when I no longer needed them I completely forgot about them.
But time has a way of coming back around. Without even realizing it, I stumbled upon a folder that contained all these stories. As if they were waiting patiently for me. They knew I would find them and have some actual use for them one day. And that day may just be right now. A few facts about these stories:
There are 27 stories in total.
24 of them are finished. 3 stories are unfinished.
Of the 27 stories I deemed 13 of them worth rewriting/editing and eventually reprinting.
Altogether they amount to 120k+ words written.
The 13 stories currently sit at 70k+ words.
My hope is to create a collection of these stories and bump up the word count on some of these stories so the entirety comes out to around 80k - 90k word count. The stories range in length from 2k to 10k words.
Going back over them all took me back to that crazy time that honestly feels much farther away than it actually was. I canāt believe itās not been that long ago and yet for many of us, I know, itās like a time that never happened. These stories are my way of remembering those years.
Iām going to make these stories free for everyone to read because I believe they are good stories and I want to put more of my work out there. However, I am also going to add a section after the story that Iām calling āBehind-the-Storyā where I discuss how I came up with the story idea, influences, characters, etc. This portion will be for paid subscribers only as well as leaving any comments you may have about each story.
To learn more about my storytelling journey and let me know what you think, become a paid subscriber today:
Check out the Old WoundsāNew Beginnings Index page here.
