The Short Version of a Long Story

--> The purpose of this blog is to spread the joy of my storytelling to all those who might be interested.   I've been collecting stories for decades and about twenty years ago, I decided to put them together into what I call a "Time-Line."   Strung together, they formed all of the important events in my life, from birth to present.  The categories needed to perform this awesome task noted the dates of every job, school attended, closest friends, favorite movies, music, places I've resided and every important event that I could remember and/or scrape together through friends and relatives.  As this hobby grew, so did the sheets of papers that I was documenting this information on.  I taped together these sheets so that I could form a continuous time-line until finally, the running testament to my life stretched out to be about twenty pages long!  Because this method finally became a folding mess, I knew that I had to find a better way to keep this information running.

During the late 1990's, I attempted to use my first  computer (IBM) as a way to keep up with my quest to document and I became extremely discouraged when the five pages that I had so carefully typed, suddenly disappeared.  Not being a typist and at the time, not knowing what the word back-up meant, I reverted back to my paper and pencil.  My second attempt with my then new Compaq computer, helped me to understand what the word "crashed" meant.  The ten pages that I had printed were lost forever but if nothing else, I was learning to use the computer. I finally got another computer (Dell) but it was another two years before I got the guts to attempt this over-whelming project again.

I decided to use Microsoft Excel as a way of chronologically keeping up with all of the dates.  I found that I could even insert pictures along with the information to give a clearer picture of the memory that I was trying to preserve.  As the information turned into longer stories and the pictures took over more and more space, I felt the need to expand and give more detail to the stories past the Excel program.  

Recently, I've decided to convert some form of the information into published books. There was no way that I was going to write an auto-biography to throw out to the world, with all the rich, intimate details of my life but instead, I decided to use a lot of my own experiences and either alter or add to them.  After all, there is such a thing as writer's privilege. I still find it remarkable how you can start out with one idea and then through what seems like inspiration, then be led down a path that you had no idea that you would be traveling.  This feeling of inspired creativity is a story for another time.

In terms of expertise, I figured that my growing up in Harlem, attending Music & Art High School (then in Harlem) and graduating from C.C.N.Y. (still in Harlem), gave me enough of a perspective to be able to speak authoritatively about my surroundings. My first book was about these very times in my life, with a twist.

Regardless, I'm going to keep on documenting about life in my immediate area and beyond.  Hope you continue to come along for the ride.

Visit my website for my books and a lot more. Endless Perceptions