Some stuff I wrote
So, how have you been spending your Christmas vacation?

Among other things, I took advantage of my trip home to go through my floppy discs, and take some stories I wrote when I was younger and post them on line.

I don't really have a good reason for doing this. Both of these pieces were written in my youth, and do not by any means represent great works of literature.
Besides which, I know that when I write a long post on this weblog, very few people actually read the whole thing to the end. So I have no illusions that anyone is going to sit down and read a whole novel posted online.

On the other hand, I really didn't have a good reason not to do this. Everything was saved on disc already. It was just a matter of opening a couple new blogs, and then a lot of copying and pasting. If I really thought anyone was going to read the whole thing straight through, I probably wouldn't have the courage to post it on-line anyway.

Posting stuff on-line was just a little project to keep me busy while I was home. It gave me an excuse to go over stuff I wrote a long time ago, stuff I haven't re-read for years now. I thought it would be fun to post it on-line and see what happened.

The only concern I have is that it might seem somewhat presumptuous. I have several friends who are professional writers, some of whom perhaps drop by this web log from time to time. Some of whom I know are working on novels of their own. The concern I have is that by posting my stories I might appear to cheapen their efforts by having a "Me Too" attitude.

I've been thinking about what the best solution to that is. I would go on about how awful and childish my own writing is, but everyone is so modest about their own writing, I thought it might be difficult to discern real modesty from politeness. Or worse yet, it could seem like I was degrading my own work in an effort to fish for compliments.

To a large extent these pieces speak for themselves. Anyone who reads them should immediately recognize that one is obviously the work of a 14 year old boy trying to imitate his favorite comic books and fantasy novels, and the other is just fooling around.

The first story, Fabulae, I started the summer before I entered 9th grade, and worked on somewhat on and off throughout most of High School. It ends on an unfinished note.



The second story was written during my last year at Calvin. It is an unfinished, unpolished rough draft. It also ends on an unfinished note. I never did decide on a title for it, so I just labeled it "Working Title."



I'm somewhat worried that these stories are so poorly written that they might not even be understandable on their own, so when I get time I plan to write up commentaries explaining what was going through my head as I wrote these things. But for now one project at a time.

Update: I've also decided to add some of my childhood writings on this blog here. For whatever they may be worth.



Update: 2018
Okay, a very late update to this, but I've got one more literary endeavor to update.  I've started dealing with my mid-life crisis by once again working on a new story
The Castle in the Magic Forest