I’ve spent a lot of time in my life writing. I have memories of writing stories as a kid. I don’t remember all the details but as an avid reader of Goosebumps in the 90s, I’m sure the stories all followed the same format. I remember some of the stories I wrote in school for the English classes. I remember the letters I used to write to pen pals. (Yeah, yeah, I’m old enough to have had pen pals.)
Like a good friend, writing was always there for me.
I’ve written here before about how I’m not a writer and I still believe that’s true. Don’t get me wrong, I like writing and maybe someday I’ll pick up that mantle again. Maybe I’ll dust off the old writings and try to make them passable.
I’ll probably just stay in the blog category. It’s easier for me. No pressure, I can write anything without fear of plot holes, bad dialog, or any sort of continuity. It’s really quite nice.
Anyway, I stumbled upon some old writings recently.
Well, I say stumbled upon, but that’s not true. I know the writings exist and where they are stored. I rarely look at them but I haven’t brought myself to delete them yet either. It wasn’t until the other day that I connected the dots between those old writings and this picture.
Those writings are like an old friend.
You know, the one from your past that knows all your embarrassing secrets that you’d never tell to your new friends. Or the one from your past that went in a completely different life direction leaving you to wonder how you were ever friends to begin with. That kind of old friend.
I remember some of the stories well enough. There was The Erithian Chornicles. Standard epic fantasy fiction that met all the tropes. There was Helios, the handsome farmhand turned hero when he took it upon himself to protect the woman he loved (from a distance). They never spoke before that moment, of course.
Unbeknownst to Helios, he had a magic within him that (of course) came out when he had to protect that woman (Serena) from the pathfinder that was hauling her away. You see, he was in danger because his opponent was better than him and magic is the easy way out.
This garbage was accompanied by The Book of Gods which is aptly named. It served as the religious text for that world that I was building. It started with, you guessed it, The Book of Life which explained the beginning of the gods. Basically, it was like this: There were two all powerful beings that did adult things over the eons and had children (elemental gods). Later they got super bored and created humanity. Eventually, they grew apart and took up their places as Light and Dark.
It was about as convoluted as the bible. With better names, in my opinion.
There were short stories that I wrote and submitted to NPR’s Three Minute Fiction program. There were poems, because of course there were. A novella called Memoirs of the Delusional. That one was more of a science-fiction piece. None of them were good.
I even have old journal entries, probably from MySpace, saved away in an archive folder.
In August of 2005, I felt depressed. By October of that year, I felt melancholy. Is there a way to mark this blog entry, here in 2023, as “embarrassed“. Well, I probably would be if I shared those writings but I’m not doing that today. Maybe another time.
Like an old friend, it’s nice to go back and visit. Reminisce on old times, have a good laugh, and then not talk again for another couple years. This way we get just enough reminder of how we’ve grown and what we’ve left behind while avoiding making the same mistake again.
Thank you, old friend. I’m glad you’re always here for me.
Art by JL 
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