My ordeal of note filing is DONE!!! Now the scary part begins. The actual writing of the story. I worked up the first draft yesterday afternoon, a sort of explanation of what is to come and why. I include it here, but this will probably be the only excerpt from the story I will put here and I'm only doing it here, and a few other places, because I want whoever reads it to understand what it is going to be all about. So, here it is . . .
A Note From The Author
I can tell the story now. They are all accounted for.
I can almost hear Martin gagging upon hearing me think those words.
Martin Rayne Kirby. My doppelganger.
My doppelganger who will once again become me, Jerry Pat Bolton, as he did all those years past, as I attempt to tell my story. A memoir, if you will, but where the names will be changed; but not to fear, the major players in this continuing drama will know who they are.
I use the form of fiction in an attempt to make this story entertaining. I feel that if I were to write it as a tell-it-like-the-way-it-happened it would be dull way to go about it. I also realize that many auto-biographies are not completely factual. I intend to be factual here, whether it is fiction or not. How can that be?
How can you write fiction and call it factual. Because, the main players herein, although their names have been changed, will know who they are. They will also understand that I have not sugar-coated anything I have writing about them, or myself, and it will be, in face, factual.
I use my alter ego, Martin Rayne Kirby because I am, to this day, more comfortable in his psyche than I am in mine. I have been able to move Martin through the labyrinth of my life up until now more easily than I could Jerry Pat Bolton. It is difficult to explain, but being a writer I know you expect me to explain it anyway. Let me just say, my birthright was bastardized and therefore I like Martin, with all his warts, much better than I like myself.
My confidant and all around rascally rogue through all of it was Martin, the prompting of my transgressions against those who came into contact with me. Most tragically it was those who found themselves in love with me that Martin Rayne, i.e., Jerry Pat treated with dire consequences.
They are all accounted for.
Five little words strung together, not meaning much of anything to the casual reader. But they mean everything to me. My children are accounted for. That means I know where they are. I know what towns they live in. It has not always been that way. In fact, for the biggest part of my life I did not know my children, or where they were. Whose fault is that?
Mine and mine alone.
Still, I wondered and worried about them and I did attempt to find them. Did I hire a detective agency to look for them? No. I guess then you can say I halfheartedly looked for my children. However you want to say it, I looked. The tough truth was I probably subconsciously didn't think I deserved to know. I felt they would, after all the years without me, be better off without knowing their dad, because I had let all three of them down.
I sit here in my den in front of the computer, perplexed. How do I go about starting these words of the past?
See? This is my quandary. I've found myself at a point in life where I'm at odds about how to begin something as important as this, my most important literary effort. It may be important to my children, if no one else. It goes without saying if I can't start the damned thing, I sure as hell can't finish it. Einstein I may not be, but I'm positive about that.
Why do I want to undertake this chore? Why do I want to rehash old wounds, to uncover all the pain which is sure to accompany it?
Because three innocent children suffered for my mistakes. That is all the reason needed. My life has come full circle now and there are things which need to be said about how that miracle came to be. As I do this I know that it is going to tear at the fabric of my soul and bring literary blood along with tears of sadness, but it is something which absolutely must be done.
Why?
Will Paula and Patricia and Nick care about my words? I don't know. Why should they be concerned with this small town boy from Arkansas they have never known; who left them to spin in the wind while he spent decades trying to figure out who he was? Who we are is actually a simple thing of just being us, without all the pretense and b.s., but I wasn't the first, or the last that couldn't look into that mirror without seeing a fraud; therefore I kept trying to make myself into what I thought the world demanded. So! Will they care about my words? I don't know. I hope so. I hope they will find something here to maybe soothe old hurts, and that is enough impetus to get me through the hard words.
And hard words they will be, at least some of them. I am reminded of a saying I heard once and have never forgotten: The first thing a man remembers is longing and the last thing he is conscious of before death is the same.
I seem to be drawn to my dark past like a moth to a flame. I pray that, unlike the moth, I will not be consumed by the very flame which attracts me.
A Note From The Author
I can tell the story now. They are all accounted for.
I can almost hear Martin gagging upon hearing me think those words.
Martin Rayne Kirby. My doppelganger.
My doppelganger who will once again become me, Jerry Pat Bolton, as he did all those years past, as I attempt to tell my story. A memoir, if you will, but where the names will be changed; but not to fear, the major players in this continuing drama will know who they are.
I use the form of fiction in an attempt to make this story entertaining. I feel that if I were to write it as a tell-it-like-the-way-it-happened it would be dull way to go about it. I also realize that many auto-biographies are not completely factual. I intend to be factual here, whether it is fiction or not. How can that be?
How can you write fiction and call it factual. Because, the main players herein, although their names have been changed, will know who they are. They will also understand that I have not sugar-coated anything I have writing about them, or myself, and it will be, in face, factual.
I use my alter ego, Martin Rayne Kirby because I am, to this day, more comfortable in his psyche than I am in mine. I have been able to move Martin through the labyrinth of my life up until now more easily than I could Jerry Pat Bolton. It is difficult to explain, but being a writer I know you expect me to explain it anyway. Let me just say, my birthright was bastardized and therefore I like Martin, with all his warts, much better than I like myself.
My confidant and all around rascally rogue through all of it was Martin, the prompting of my transgressions against those who came into contact with me. Most tragically it was those who found themselves in love with me that Martin Rayne, i.e., Jerry Pat treated with dire consequences.
They are all accounted for.
Five little words strung together, not meaning much of anything to the casual reader. But they mean everything to me. My children are accounted for. That means I know where they are. I know what towns they live in. It has not always been that way. In fact, for the biggest part of my life I did not know my children, or where they were. Whose fault is that?
Mine and mine alone.
Still, I wondered and worried about them and I did attempt to find them. Did I hire a detective agency to look for them? No. I guess then you can say I halfheartedly looked for my children. However you want to say it, I looked. The tough truth was I probably subconsciously didn't think I deserved to know. I felt they would, after all the years without me, be better off without knowing their dad, because I had let all three of them down.
I sit here in my den in front of the computer, perplexed. How do I go about starting these words of the past?
See? This is my quandary. I've found myself at a point in life where I'm at odds about how to begin something as important as this, my most important literary effort. It may be important to my children, if no one else. It goes without saying if I can't start the damned thing, I sure as hell can't finish it. Einstein I may not be, but I'm positive about that.
Why do I want to undertake this chore? Why do I want to rehash old wounds, to uncover all the pain which is sure to accompany it?
Because three innocent children suffered for my mistakes. That is all the reason needed. My life has come full circle now and there are things which need to be said about how that miracle came to be. As I do this I know that it is going to tear at the fabric of my soul and bring literary blood along with tears of sadness, but it is something which absolutely must be done.
Why?
Will Paula and Patricia and Nick care about my words? I don't know. Why should they be concerned with this small town boy from Arkansas they have never known; who left them to spin in the wind while he spent decades trying to figure out who he was? Who we are is actually a simple thing of just being us, without all the pretense and b.s., but I wasn't the first, or the last that couldn't look into that mirror without seeing a fraud; therefore I kept trying to make myself into what I thought the world demanded. So! Will they care about my words? I don't know. I hope so. I hope they will find something here to maybe soothe old hurts, and that is enough impetus to get me through the hard words.
And hard words they will be, at least some of them. I am reminded of a saying I heard once and have never forgotten: The first thing a man remembers is longing and the last thing he is conscious of before death is the same.
I seem to be drawn to my dark past like a moth to a flame. I pray that, unlike the moth, I will not be consumed by the very flame which attracts me.
MY NOVELS:
My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742
Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621
Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842
Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621
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