A Flurry of Activity

I’ve been digging through my archives for works that I never got finished or had been forgotten and posted as much of it as I could find here on this site. There isn’t as much as I would like there to be, but there are more than a few pieces I was able to salvage. There’s a laptop out there somewhere with work on it I may never see again, but that’s okay. The next great American novel isn’t among those forgotten manuscripts.

I’ve posted the works that I’ve deemed fit for viewing, even if they are all nearly incomplete. The Ant Farm is the only piece I’ve been working on in some capacity as of late, and I plan on putting up chapters on a regular basis. Some of those chapters already exist, and others will be willed into existence soon.

The Hotel St. James is a piece of southern Gothic fiction that I started back in my last year of college. I’d always wanted to finish it, and I think having it here will give me the impetus to do so. I’ve divided it into parts for the ease of writing, but it’s the lengthiest piece I have posted, coming in at about 18 pages or so as it stands now.

I’ve also created a section for short stories, of which only one currently exists. Swan Song was a piece that of mine that I was quite proud of when I first wrote it, but it certainly doesn’t hold up. It’s written from a place that was not wholly understood by me at the time. There are plenty of things I would do differently if I were to write it now, but that would be unfair, nor do I think it would be remotely the same kind of story. It’s a product of youthful cynicism that has since been exorcised from my mind. Still, I hope you’ll give it a look if you so fancy.

I hope you find something here engaging, and if you like what you read, let me know! I’d rather work on something that people are interested in than not. Until then, I’ll keep on plugging away and get some more work up here as soon as I can.

In the Beginning…

There’s a harshness in the reality that you may not be able to be what you want to be when you grow up. Each of us as children tend to think of any multitude of professions we may aspire to. Some of us want to be astronauts. Others want to dance ballet. Whatever it is you want to be when you grow up, it seems rather simple. If you want it bad enough, you can attain it.

But that’s not how it works at all in reality. You’ll change your mind again and again most likely. I wanted to be a paleontologist. Then I wanted to be a writer. Then an English professor.

I wanted to be all of these things and I ended up being none of these things.

There are times I look back at my dream professions and wonder, “What if?” What if I had studied more? What if I applied myself better? What if I had taken different paths, or made different decisions? Would that have helped? These sound like troubling questions, but they really aren’t. It’s comforting to review the path that brought me to my present. I find that I didn’t make any mistakes to end up where I’m at. My goals changed, because having that childish dream job didn’t matter so much anymore.

I read about the discoveries paleontologists make because it interests me. I work with my daughter to teach her new things. I write, not because I need to do so to sustain my family, but because I like to. I’ve turned professions into hobbies, and I’ve added many to the list.

I brew beer. I play board games. I take pictures. I am a husband and a father.

Perhaps that harshness of not attaining those childhood dreams is illusory. It only impacts you if you live your life in regrets – if all you do is wonder what life could have been you’ll never appreciate your life for what it is.