I love a good story. 

When I was a kid I watched a lot of tv. I watched stuff that any kid my age watched back then; Saturday morning serials like Sky King, The Lone Ranger, and Rocky Jones: Space Ranger. The stories they told were pretty simplistic: bad guys did bad deeds and the good guys always won the day. You didn’t have to think too hard about it and the action, such as it was back then, was really why you watched.

I also watched adult shows and movies back then too. The stories they told were far more nuanced, there were reasons the bad guys (and girls) did bad things and it made you wonder if they were truly bad. And the good guys were just a likely to do bad in the name of good. Shows like Perry Mason, The Loretta Young Show, Dragnet and 12 0’Clock High. I was entranced by movies like The Glass Menagerie, Marnie, Rear Window, Lost Horizon, The World of Suzy Wong and more. Though they were in black and white those shows and movies showed me that life wasn’t that way but a zillion shades of grey, and good and evil were often matters of perspective.

The same was true with the books I read, which tended to be science fiction. Still, the best stories were those where the lines that delineated right from wrong and good from bad were ofter blurry, faint, or nonexistent.

Back then, when other kids dreamt of being cowboys, firemen or race car drivers, I fantasied about climbing mountains, diving into the ocean abyss, rocketing into the void of space, and writing about all of it. I tried several times to write out stories by hand when I was very young, but I never really got anywhere with it. I pretty much abandoned the dream of writing until computers made word processors available to the masses. During my late 20’s through to my early 40’s I wrote what must have been hundreds of stories. Most are lost now, but I recall several.

If I remember correctly the stories I wrote back then horribly written, but the premisses were good. Over the years I have found some of those stories and read them, and the same can be said for all of them: good ideas, bad execution.

Recently I met someone who I now consider a friend, her name is Danielle. She and her husband, Rich (also a friend), lives in Virginia. She is a woman of many talents and one of them is writing. We have swapped a few stories and she thinks I should try to publish some of my work. Let me reiterate: The stuff I’ve written in the past were poorly done. They are replete with grammar and spelling errors and other technical issues, but the premisses of many of them are sound. So, what I intend to do is rewrite some of them, fixing the technical issues and updating the language while adhering to the basic storyline.

Publishing my stories is another thing altogether. What I’ve written in the past are short stories, they range from 5,000 to 10,000 words. So, for my publishing efforts I’ll start with those. To generate interest I’m going to create a repository for the stories I publish. My goal is to get the stories out so people can read them, but I also would like the effort to be self-supporting. To that end, my plan is this: As I complete a story I will post ‘Part 1’ of it and make it publicly available. You’d read Part 1 for free, but would pay a dollar or two to read the rest of the story. I also intend to offer audio versions of the published stories. Once you’ve paid the stories will be downloadable and you can load it onto your Kindle or other e-reader or just read it from your browser. Audio versions will be MP3 files and will play on anything that plays MP3s.

I don’t intend to get rich doing this. I just don’t want to drain my meager bank account to do it. So, to get this ball rolling I will offer my first story for free. ‘Carmen’ is about a nerdy guy who encounters a mysterious woman. To some the story may seem incomplete, but I assure you, it is complete. It focuses on the experience of the protagonist who is inexperienced when it comes to dating.

The next story is ‘Fledglings’ and it’s about a guy who discovers something strange about himself. As I’ve mentioned before, Part 1 of Fledglings will be offered for free. To read the rest you simply click on the link and pay $1.00. You can then download a PDF or ePub version. I will offer the audio version of the full story later if there’s interest.  

So, please take a look at my Stories, read Carmen, and leave comments. I promise to answer.

Here’s the link: https://gogzr.com/stories/

Stay tuned.

Vern