A fitting end

 I struggled over the ending of the final story for my anthology until yesterday, when I realised it had to finish with an inconclusive ending. The anthology is my life in short stories, a chronological account of stories I have written since my first when I was in my teens. Since my life is not over, it follows that the ending of the last story leaves the future open to speculation. Moreover, the last story is the most autobiographical, it tells of a elderly man travelling on coach tours, looking for something or someone as I have been doing in the past year. 

After throwing out a few which I did not think were worth including, the anthology now consists of 27 stories totalling just short of 80,000 words. They range widely in subject matter and are not confined to any genre. I have no idea what readers will make of them, but my aim is simple - having written so many stories over the years I want to see them in print instead of gathering dust in a drawer. Hopefully my great grandsons, Noah and Cooper, and their descendants, will one day read them and have some idea what sort of person they are descended from. That's probably a vain hope, but it is one that gives me a good feeling.

Ready to start editing

 I have finished transcribing my short stories into the first draft of an anthology. Twenty-seven stories and 75,000 words. Now I start editing, which may see some of the stories disappear as I have found some of them not up to the standard I want to be remembered for, On the other hand, the anthology is meant to be a memoir of what I have written throughout my life, so perhaps they should stay, 

I am also at the same stage with my book of poems and songs, which will be a much slimmer volume. I think at this stage I may leave that to be published at a later stage.

Another project

 Partially ignoring my previous resolution (in as much as I have shelved some of those projects) I suddenly became enthused with reviving my book of poetry and songs, which I had almost completed. It would be great to be able to launch both my short story anthology and my book of poetry at the same time, although perhaps staggered launches would produce better sales. That is something I will have to think about.

So I have made a first draft of the poetry book and I'm working on changing the typeface to make the poems look better on the page. Some of them have to be on a single page and some go over two pages, I have also designed a cover for it with the title All my years, which is a play on All my tears from Omar Khayam.

I have also transcribed most of A Living Death, with only two more stories to be transcribed and one new story to be finished before the first draft of the anthology will be ready. The cover for that is also in draft form, the title being A Life In Short Stories.

All of this is making me feel good and a lot more positive about life in general.

Need to concentrate

 In a rush of enthusiasm generated by my renewed urge to write, I think I may have rushed off in too many directions.

I've given up the idea of an illustrated children's book. Not only is it not the sort of thing I usually write but I don't want the cost and effort of organising an illustrator.

My priority has to be the short story anthology with the hope I may get it published in time for the Book Fair in July. I have nearly 60,000 words so far with about another 5,000 transcribed. I can start to work on the cover while this and the editing are in process so it should be possible.

I have two stories for the Writing Centre's anthologies and there is plenty of time to tidy them up and possibly write two more.

Everything else has to go on hold, including the other short stories I have been working on and the next novel.

On a roll

 Not only can I transcribe my old hard-copy stories using the OCR capacity in Onenote, but I've realised I can read them direct into Word using the "dictate" feature in the top right corner of the Home page. I really should have read the manual when I started using computers. I wonder what other clever things it can do?😊

So, I have been transcribing stories for my anthology using both methods (my voice gets a little tired doing only dictation), I have completed a first draft of a christmas children's story I am so pleased with I am thinking of making it into an illustrated book, and the germ of an idea for a new novel is starting to sprout into something more tangible in the back of my mind.

I have one other short story I have to get beyond the first opening sentences and then all my current writing projects will be moving along nicely.

All this has been helped immensely by being in lockdown because of Covid. There's no pressure on me to get out and make as if I want to be part of the rest of the world. I suspect it was the feeling I had to do that and have a busy social life that contributed to the hiatus in my writing through most of last year.

Now I am back writing I know what I always knew before - that this is who I am, misanthropic old hermit or not.😉