Over the past month or so I’ve gone through boxes of notebooks that I have had stored in my garage for decades. I pared them down to the stories and writings I wanted to keep, then organized them into three-ring notebooks so I could find them easily. They date back to 1984, and reading the stuff from when I was 13 is equal parts embarrassing, hilarious, and nostalgic. When I read a story about “the Simon house” on “Parker Hill”, it reminds me of watching “Simon & Simon” and reading “The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson. I had even created a pseudonym for my writing: Hg Morgan. Because Morgan horses were beautiful, and we were working with mercury in science and it was pretty cool stuff. However I have no idea why so many of my stories were set in Billings, Montana.

Sometimes it was fun being 13. It was a lot less complicated, anyway.

I am trying to re-read my old stories without cringing, to try to jump back into the flow and enjoy the process again. I have a lot to go through, and I’m hoping it will “spark joy” to borrow a phrase from Marie Kondo.

I already know the first story – the one about the Simon house on Parker Hill – will only be a partial success, because at the end of the notebook there’s a note that says “To finish the story, go on to the next volume”… which I don’t have. Oops!