The short stories I write come from a special place where I safeguard my secrets, emotions, and hopes. Writing began as a cathartic expression during and after my separation. It brought me joy and it didn’t depend on anyone else other than me. Something I always did alone and sometimes when I was lonely.
Most of the stories started out as small ideas that tapped into an emotion I was feeling at a peculiar moment… inspired by life’s subtle or punch-in-the-face moments. They’d start out as a kernel and, with enough time and reflection, germinate into something more robust that had the flavor of what I was feeling or longing to feel.
The real special ones, they would come to me in a spontaneous moment of pure creation. I don’t know how else to explain it. Like a literary version of emotional, primal lovemaking. The whole story comes to me at once…. the beginning, the heart, the ending… all of it. I feel like the idea was always there like a whispering voice buried under a layer of memories, emotions, and hopes. The whisper just turns into a roar and everything comes out at once.
When those moments hit, I try to give that story the respect it deserves and just write. And when I’m done, I just leave it alone and walk away. Maybe to give me a break. Maybe to give it a chance to just stand on its own two legs and honor the process. Maybe a little of both. I’ll come back to it later… sometimes a few days, sometimes a few months, but I’ll always come back to it. Each story has a piece of me.
Why share all this??? I could have easily just written “here’s a bunch of stories I wrote, please read ‘em”.
I guess I’ve always wanted to be understood. Don’t we all crave that to some degree? The “Why” behind something is just as important as the “something” in question.
10/2020
