This book started off as a series of stories written from a series of writing prompts, mostly submitted by my daughter, Jasmine, who gifted me a membership to Storyworth, on Christmas Day, 2025.
Being by nature an overachiever, and a list-making man, I frequently found myself going beyond the original vignette, with an exhaustive account… a diatribe of every experience that I have had in my life… even tangentially related to the original prompt.
But gradually I developed some good writing habits. I began to relegate that extraneous material to a sidebar, to an appendix, or (best of all) to another story altogether. I could take those interminably long stories and split them into two (or three), mercifully, shorter tales. I began to focus on the crux of the matter.
Then I realized that I could write the entire story as a block and sandwich it between an Introduction and a Conclusion. The parts of the story could be written after the fact, or completely separately.
Story structure. Who knew?
I discovered that the secret to landing upon a good story title often lay in keeping the (double) meaning of the title a secret until the concluding remarks of the story. So, I began to write the story to its conclusion before giving it a title.
I figured out how to add photos about 3 months into the project.
And I learned about the proper use of an em dash about 6 months in. I discovered that I had been using far too many semicolons, probably for most of my life. (I spent some time in animated discussions with Jasmine, bonding over the eccentricities of grammar.)
I tried to become less academic in the way I told my stories. I attempted, here and there, to show the reader how things felt, rather than simply telling them. I tried to develop some color in the stories — some immediacy.
I began to reread stories in the editing process, finding other ways to improve them. I could write the first draft of a story one day (or write an outline), rewrite a different story the next day, and use AI to proofread and finish still another story on a third day.
In short, I became a better writer.
*****
My storytelling improved with time. But still, telling a perfect story is hard. It is elusive.
Sometimes a beautiful story only happens by chance. A perfectly suited metaphor is hit upon. Or the subject is vivid and exciting. Or the story has greater meaning and personal significance than expected.
Perhaps there are four or five good stories in this collection.
*****
This book is far from a finished project. It is really an example of a work in progress. You can see this in the way that the stories fail to connect one to the next, and in the wild eccentricity of their lengths and their composition styles.
But, at the very least, this collection will give my children (and my loved ones) a chance to understand how things were for me in my life — how I began to see and react to the world.
How much some things have changed. How much some things are still the same.
They should be able to see how young and foolish I was, and how long that youthful idiocy prevailed.
They should be able to see that their own youthful misadventures aren’t that dissimilar from mine.
Hopefully they will be able to see that they don’t have to be defined by what happens to them. They can be defined by what they do… for themselves and for others.
*****
At times my life was that of an innocent bystander… especially in the experience I had during the death of my father.
But I was also a bit of a bystander in the events that led to my Phase III hearing at NCSSM, when I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And I was a bit of a bystander as my life unfolded: during an ill conceived foray into engineering at Vanderbilt… as a Wolfpack fan at NC State University… as a study-abroad student at Flinders University… and an amusement park worker at Lightwater Valley.
But at some point I began to shed the cloak of invisibility and I began to take ownership of my life and my fate.
I chose a promising career path and pursued it.
I met people that cared and embraced them—people that mattered.
I took action. I did things.
I gradually turned from misadventure to adventure. I turned from youthful indiscretion to mature discretionary action.
I learned to take care of people who were themselves innocent bystanders — trying to prevent medical disasters that would create innocent bystanders in the fallout.
And I tried to become a model of resilience for my children to follow (though their mother is the best model of resilience you could ask for).
*****
For the most part, this collection covers the first 30 years of my life — from my birth to the birth of my twins. There are two or three stories about later days, but for the most part, the story of my medical career, my marriage, and the rest have not been included. Not because they aren’t important, but because they are too important to give short shrift here.
And after 1994, I am really a different person — no longer a child or a victim. I am no longer dealing with grief and academic concerns. I am dealing with real world concerns — working and parenting.
I’m no longer an innocent bystander.
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