While formatting this website, I thought would be “fun” to offer a chapter-by-chapter posting of one of my unpublished manuscripts. There is even a tab for this endeavor, titled “Foolishly Free”. How difficult could it be? If Dickens could handle it, shouldn’t I -without the stress of a looming deadline by some newspaper publisher- be able to review/edit/polish some earlier bit of writing?

Alas, the cold reality of such a task is best illustrated by my photo of a scrap yard. I discovered there are many such yards along the Amtrak’s Crescent line. Initially, the shapes and textures within this jumble of objects intrigued the right side of this traveler’s brain. But what would one DO with this stuff? The gears would be too corroded to mesh properly; many of the lengths of pipe appeared to be just trimmed-off remnants and the items that might be 4-cylinder engine blocks would need a remarkable amount of work to be serviceable. So it has been with my efforts to bring my earlier work to the website. Heaps of adjectives, a tangle of backstory details which threaten to strangle the plot, and bits of, what I can now see as, weak dialog coated each page as the rust covers those hunks of metal. I have been horrified by the amount of time expended in sifting through and tossing away pages-worth of drivel; cringing at phrases of my own making while wallowing in self-loathing for my earlier pride in this manuscript. Work In Progress, indeed!

Never-the-less, a promise is a promise. And I am pleased with the results. The first chapter is now edited and up for your entertainment. With luck, I will have a new chapter up each week- or so.