Each Sunday for the next five weeks, we’re sharing a collection of posts by writers on Substack. This series, called At Length, will recommend pieces that we think are not only worth reading, but worth returning to again and again. Our goal is to shine a spotlight on emerging writers, as well as introduce readers to more independent writers who are hiding in plain sight. Each week, we’ll pick a theme and surface a few posts that speak to that theme in a memorable way.
The making of a writer. Where do stories come from? I suspect it is different for each writer. I can only tell you about me:
I’m a 72-year-old man in my second retirement trying to write stories people might like.
Most of the stories I write, or the fragmented visions and ideas that birthed them, came to me in dreams or PTSD-fueled nightmares.
Like many, as soon as I wake, the dreams begin t to crumble and fall apart like clouds shredded by the wind. Fragmented memories of the dream are all that is left. What remains is little more than a seed, a small, fragile thing that might become a story with a bit of imagination.
That’s how most of my Strange Stories come about, and many of my tales are pretty strange. You might say they live in the shadows on the weird side of the street.
If I’ve forgotten to take the PTSD medication, the one that takes away the bad dreams, I might toss and turn all night thinking about, dreaming about a long-ago war and the people and events left behind in that distant time and place.
The story borne from that nightmare might show you an old veteran, lost and troubled in mind and spirit as he struggles with unseen visitors. Will these strange visitors lead him to take his own life, or will they transport him to a safer, better place – welcome him home?
If I’ve read way too much about the dangers of climate change, I might tell you Climate change is real, and it’s coming for us. Along the way, I’ll spin a tale of a lonely survivor’s long journey to find a safe place and his efforts to exist in a dying world.
I might even tell you the dead man’s dream, the one where he is a lonely ghost wandering across America. What happens when we die takes on a whole new meaning in stories like this. Death and beyond might be, could be far different than we imagine.
Or about the man so driven to despair by the Great Recession, he finds a way to start over, go back to his childhood days, make different decisions, relive life in an attempt to alter the outcome.
How about a young boy, a child, eternally altered by terrible sexual abuse. He retreats from the world, lives his life as a loner, afraid to trust, isolated from all but his wife and children. As a grown man, he discovers the abuse altered his brain waves, introduced strange quantum vibrations in the living cells of his brain, giving him the ability to walk out of his dreams into another life as a different man in a parallel universe.
That's who I am. That's where my ideas come from. Am I a bit strange? Probably!
The making of a writer. Where do stories come from? I suspect it is different for each writer. I can only tell you about me:
I’m a 72-year-old man in my second retirement trying to write stories people might like.
Most of the stories I write, or the fragmented visions and ideas that birthed them, came to me in dreams or PTSD-fueled nightmares.
Like many, as soon as I wake, the dreams begin t to crumble and fall apart like clouds shredded by the wind. Fragmented memories of the dream are all that is left. What remains is little more than a seed, a small, fragile thing that might become a story with a bit of imagination.
That’s how most of my Strange Stories come about, and many of my tales are pretty strange. You might say they live in the shadows on the weird side of the street.
If I’ve forgotten to take the PTSD medication, the one that takes away the bad dreams, I might toss and turn all night thinking about, dreaming about a long-ago war and the people and events left behind in that distant time and place.
The story borne from that nightmare might show you an old veteran, lost and troubled in mind and spirit as he struggles with unseen visitors. Will these strange visitors lead him to take his own life, or will they transport him to a safer, better place – welcome him home?
If I’ve read way too much about the dangers of climate change, I might tell you Climate change is real, and it’s coming for us. Along the way, I’ll spin a tale of a lonely survivor’s long journey to find a safe place and his efforts to exist in a dying world.
I might even tell you the dead man’s dream, the one where he is a lonely ghost wandering across America. What happens when we die takes on a whole new meaning in stories like this. Death and beyond might be, could be far different than we imagine.
Or about the man so driven to despair by the Great Recession, he finds a way to start over, go back to his childhood days, make different decisions, relive life in an attempt to alter the outcome.
How about a young boy, a child, eternally altered by terrible sexual abuse. He retreats from the world, lives his life as a loner, afraid to trust, isolated from all but his wife and children. As a grown man, he discovers the abuse altered his brain waves, introduced strange quantum vibrations in the living cells of his brain, giving him the ability to walk out of his dreams into another life as a different man in a parallel universe.
That's who I am. That's where my ideas come from. Am I a bit strange? Probably!
Thank you for the feature, this is a great idea for a series. Excited to read the pieces you feature!
Will you be publishing the theme you choose in advance?
This is so nice, thank you!
Great idea and hugely enjoyable. Thanks!
be great to have consideration from the fiction and poetry segment of Substack - nice to promote emerging writers and less known stackers!