A new project for 2023: A Book of Short Stories

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The Living Force
I've been musing over beginning a new project for the coming year. The idea is to compile a selection of short stories I've written over the last 6 years and filed away for posterity. I have a USB stick with a 50k word file, with the synopsis for about 300 short stories and in some cases there is more drafts of tales too. Thematically I've kept them varied, and most of the stories are character-driven, rather than plot. Although there's a fair bit of that too! Anyway, it's been on my mind for the last few months and I think the time is right to put this bit of work together. I like working in miniature, always had an interest in the form.

The general themes behind the stories are grief, sorrow, war, evil, UFOs, religion, nostalgia, trust, obsession and mental illness. There's more too but those are the main ones. I don't have the foggiest idea about how you get things published, but I did get some poetry published for two firms by winning a writing competition back in 2006/7, so in my little way I've got some form. To be honest the whole project is an attempt to come to terms with how I see life on earth as a man approaching 50, in contrast with how I saw the world age 21. The difference is staggering I can tell you. I've lived a rather unconventional and colourful life, and have been lucky enough to meet some very interesting people too. I've collected all my journals from the last 30 years and there's a goldmine of info contained within those dusty books, interspersed with sophomoric ramblings. My stories are never interpolations of real life people or situations, but more a kind of emotional response to all I've experienced in the last 25 years or so. I think I can get the first pile of them written in January alone, the synopses I've already written contain a lot of data about each story, and the titles are already down too. Some stories have illustrations too, just sketches to add a bit to how my ideas were forming.

Christmas is always a time for family, food and fun for us here in my home, but the new year is when I finally get my little project started for real. I'll post here as and when the work develops and may even ask a question or two, just to get some feedback. You've all got good brains on here after all.

I've noticed lately that my life has been drifting, stagnating, just a general air of lethargy. I'm very glad that I put the USB file together, there's always something to be said for just planting seeds, sometimes even years in advance. This idea has been gestating for the best part of a decade, if nothing else I should learn a thing or two by doing this, this will sharpen my focus, which I think I need. Time is ever shifting on, and these festivities will soon pass, and then it will be January and time for some creative graft. It's really given me a shot in the arm, something to go for. Life is a series of opportunities and this is also no dress-rehearsal. This is something I've wanted to do in some form since I graduated from Uni in 1997. Better late than never. How I measure success from this project will be interesting too. I'm sure to learn a thing or two doing this that I don't expect, that's how life often goes with me.

Roll on the new year, and a chance to change my home regime. More graft, less podcasts and cigars. :lol:
 
Thanks for the encouragement Tauriel. Since I made the decision to get this project up and running I have felt a weight leave my shoulders. I'm free to party through the festive period before getting down to the work. I've been looking through the file and I can already recall a number of titles that I am really looking forward to drafting. I think a process of about 3 or 4 drafts will be enough, just to hone the stories down. With the short story format you've got to be very economical with the words, it's very different from general creative writing. A different challenge. You have to make every word carry a lot of meaning.

Thematically I'm already musing on the work I've already put down into text. It's quite a varied selection, some daft tales involving reprobates in the UK, but also more serious pieces concerning the modern world. A blend of the frivolous and the profound is what I'm aiming for. Mainly it's emotional work, the idea is always to evoke a response from the reader. You won't have to grind your gears to understand the stories, but you will feel things. As a project I've defined it as "being catching up with knowledge", which is where I've been at for a few years now. Consolidating what has been worked on, while still assimilating new ideas as I go along. I'm really looking forward to January now, which is unheard of for me! :lol:
 
Do what excites you and I look forward to your posts and progress.

Thanks gottathink! That's what's basically behind the endeavour, to do something which has niggled at me over the years, even if it doesn't come to anything substantial I think I'll learn a lot just working through the stuff I've got in my notes. Thinking about knowledge and being, and all the ideas reflected in the notes I have on karmic and simple understandings is what I'm aiming to aggregate in some way. It won't be that difficult to get me going, but I have one eye on writing in a way which will interest people who perhaps haven't considered the ideas which have exercised our minds on here. I have no drive to blow people away with esoteric ideas, but rather to explore the emotional consequences of having dove into these subjects. Not to scare people off, but rather to show that there's nothing to be scared of.

I genuinely believe that too. There is literally nothing to be scared of in our world, not of the 3d or the 4d variety. When you come through that process of overcoming fear of the unknown, you realise that your potential is without bounds. I'm still in this process, and I don't take it lightly, but those words from Caesar that we should "be true to your own nature and fear nothing" are wonderful advice. It promises to be a very interesting new year for us all, and just as always with me I'll be on the sidelines, taking notes. :-)
 
It won't be that difficult to get me going, but I have one eye on writing in a way which will interest people who perhaps haven't considered the ideas which have exercised our minds on here. I have no drive to blow people away with esoteric ideas, but rather to explore the emotional consequences of having dove into these subjects. Not to scare people off, but rather to show that there's nothing to be scared of.
That's a great angle! I wish you happy writing and will await peeks into what you've got....
 
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