Through my eyes. Again. ... October 2019
Added 2019-10-09 07:09:41 +0000 UTCI am a new author who is feeling their way around the online publishing world. As I have read many great stories at Storiesonline.net, I decided to start releasing this story on that site. I uploaded two chapters, hoping to get some feedback which would help guide and also help maintain the motivation of a part time author.
Almost immediately I received some great encouragement, but also strong recommendations from many people (including authors for whom I have enormous respect). They suggested I not post the story as I write it, as had been my plan, but rather they pointed me here to Patreon where I can post chapters to a more restricted audience, receive feedback, revise and work the story to completion before posting it as a complete story.
So - here I am, a novice writer and a novice user of Patreon.9
What this means is that I will stop posting Through my eyes. Again. to Storiesonline (SOL) but will instead post here, soliciting feedback and editing from good people here. I hope that this does not annoy too many readers over at SOL, but it's clear that was I was proposing to do was a less than great way to go about things. I will post the completed story to SOL at the end of this process.
A few background items for Through my eyes. Again. (TMEA)
One reader has suggested that the transition back to youth is not well explained. This is deliberately so. I know of no mechanism that would actually achieve such a transition and so leaving it as unexplained avoids the problem of trying to explain the essentially inexplicable. A number of authors in the do-over genre give some explanation (for example rlfj, FortySixtyFour), but I felt that leaving it open provided room for exploration in the story.
The story contains direct references to suicide, suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts. They are an essential part of the story and if this causes you any concern, please do not read this story. If the story causes you to have such thoughts please speak to your friends, family and the many excellent services that offer free assistance. Here in Australia they include Lifeline and BeyondBlue.
As with all writing, there are elements of autobiography used as story kernels and inspiration, but this is a work of fiction and the characters do not represent any real person, alive or dead.
And so, on with the task. I will post the first two chapters on SOL here and will post to my SOL blog directing interested readers here.