Lost and Found

In reading Orson Scott Card, I have felt a strong urge to look back at a short story collection I finished just after my undergraduate days, not quite a decade ago. At the time, I felt like it was some of my best work, and I even sent it to the same self-publisher that helped Richard Paul Evans (The Christmas Box, related sequels, among others) get his start, Brown Books. They showed an interest, but self doubt made me think "Why wouldn't they, I'm still footing the bill" so I didn't pursue it. Instead I set it aside, feeling like Card explained he felt about a story he wrote an outline for just before he was about to get married. He was not ready to give it proper treatment. Each of the stories in that collection of mine, I felt, could have been woven into one novel, a novel each in a series, or at least a few novels from certain subsets. I still know I am not yet ready to give those stories proper treatment to flesh them out or even polish out the rough edges of what little is there, but I wanted to at least take some time to examine them.

But I can't find them so far. I think I have the hard-copy at my parents' home, and I may even have the original computer files on some computer there, but for the moment, I am a little saddened. I hope the stories have not truly been lost to the ages, especially now that my desire to write may be "found" again. Maybe, though, this is a sign that I need to start from scratch, revisiting each of the various tales and perhaps the whole collection, with a somewhat more mature perspective.

Then again, those reading this blog may just be chuckling to themselves. And hey, it's not as if they don't have a right to. I need a lot more published work - that people actually pay to read - to have such a discourse on my writing matter.

-- Robert