There are some cool things that occur when you are attempting to move from one home to another, but are determined not to move anything that you don't really need to move. I've made four trips in my truck to Goodwill with donations. And my new trailer is still packed full. I'm determined to dump more junk in the near future!
But the cool things: I found a box of manuscripts that I thought had been lost years ago. It is full of short stories and humorous essays that date back as much as fifty years. Occasionally, I read one that hits me square between the eyes with the sheer putridness of what was written. I resolve at once to give away my computer and never write another word. There are others, however, that I look at and think, "Hey, that's not bad." Most of them need a little cleanup before I am willing to let anyone else see them. Or a lot of clean up with the old toothbrush that is under the sink dedicated to cleaning the mold out of the grout between the tiles.
Well, I know short stories aren't the bread and butter here at SOL and I don't even turn on voting when I post short stories. I have done volumes of them, however. Steven George & The Dragon, for example, has a "Once upon a time..." story in every chapter as the hapless hero attempts to find his way to his dragon. Also, aroslav's book Pygmalion Revisited is a small collection of short stories all on the theme of the myth of an artist who falls in love with his artwork.
I've decided to create a collection of my miscellaneous short stories and it will be titled To Make a Long Story Short, Nathan Everett's Collected Short Stories and Essays. As I get these older stories dusted off and rewritten, I'll post each as a chapter of that series.
And wouldn't you know, I've already cleaned one of them up and had it ready to post anyway, so it gets to be first. "What the Sergeant Didn't See" is a story in the world of Steven George and might have described an encounter the Sergeant might not have had with the story teller. Um... Well, you'll have to decide that. It's the first story in the collection of To Make a Long Story Short. And it should be up today or sometime soon. This one only dates back about eleven years.
I hope you'll all join me for this little journey into the recesses of my files. I'll have to translate some of the stories from chicken scratches that I assume were my handwriting.
Oh... What's a short story? In my mind, a short story is any complete story that can be read independently of any other context or setting. It has a beginning, middle, and end. But it's too short to make a whole novel or novella out of. I consider anything shorter than Steinbeck's The Pearl (about 100 pages and maybe 35,000 words) to be a short story, even if it has chapters. I don't think any of my short stories exceed that. Or even come close.
An essay, does not really have a plot or much in the way of character development. It is topical rather than a story. Sometimes, it's hard to tell which is which when it comes to short stories and essays, so I'm lumping them all together in this volume.
Okay. I'm shutting up now. You'll never believe I can write something that short!