TaDa! Well would you look at that, I have resurrected my digital life!
It’s been a very long time since I first started posting ‘From Within’ and it may get continued at some point but don’t hold your breath. I have read back the story as it currently is and I am not sure that I am capable of writing something that would fit anymore.
I seem to have done something rather stupid and grown up a little.
For all those that have asked me to continue or even those that asked if I were still alive, thanks for showing an interest and I am sorry that for the most part, I didn’t answer.
I had every intention of completing ‘From WIthin’ but I lost around fifteen thousand words to a computer mishap (Learned a lesson there!) and couldn’t find the energy to re-write it all.
Before I had a chance to pick it up again, a pretty messy divorce got in the way, I was almost homeless for a while, and met a great woman (at least I thought so at the time.) Had my heart ripped out and was betrayed in a way I’ve never experienced after five years with her.
Fast forward a bit, Met the perfect woman who has been my rock in all things. We married about eight years ago.
Life and working took too much time for me to even consider writing. I thought that was something I had grown out of.
Until last year.
I had a stroke last February, (2023) and that put paid to my career again.
I am still struggling to make myself understood a lot of the time and my legs have taken up a new hobby. That of giving way on me at times and letting me know that they are there by screaming in pain at me constantly.
I was in a pretty shitty place when I read something about a famous author that only decided to write when his health declined and he had to leave work because of it. That sparked something in me. I had read this in something on here and although I have since discovered that it wasn’t completely accurate it has served me well. The author that was mentioned was Robert Heinlein.
I didn’t bother to do anything with that spark but it kept going around my damaged brain.
I had a vague idea of what I could write about. It was going to be a ‘Do over’ tale, starting with me not surviving my stroke and I began to put some words down.
By chapter two, it had morphed into a tale of High Fantasy. You know the sort of thing, gods and demons, witches and gryphons and other stuff that randomly popped into my mind.
I started writing this stuff in September last year. Took a while to retrain my hands to allow me to type more tha a few words a minute but the more I practised, the more I wrote, the faster I got and the faster the ideas flowed. I don’t honestly know if it is my brain rewriting my neural pathways that happens after a stroke but I feel more capable and more creative than at any time in my life.
I have written two books in a series so far and I am well into the third. That’s over a quarter of a million words written so far. I am planning to post the first book here as this site has been good to me in the past.
The whole series is unlikely to be made available here as I find myself in need of an income. I’ve got no delusions of topping the Times best seller lists or anything like that, but when you are out of work with no end in sight, every little helps.
Keep an eye out on Kindle and similar places if you find you want to read more of the story.
Paul G Clark
aka Unworthy1