This project is a weekly excursion where I re-read a chapter of my failed manuscript, annotate it with context and commentary, and share on this blog site.

Foreword

When I was in high school, I thought I could be an author.  That did not happen.  

Ever since then, I've been haunted by this unfinished manuscript.  Not because I look back and think 'Oh, how I wish had stuck with it because it could have been something special.' No, rather, I'm haunted because I started it at all.  

Simply put, it's bad. 

Very bad.

My main character is a total self insert.  I 'based' some characters off of my crush and the popular kids that I wanted to be friends with.   It's a mix of self serving wish fulfillment and generic plot structure, janked together by someone whose only qualification was liking to read the handful of thrillers he was exposed to.

So, why am I doing this?  Now that I'm in my late twenties, I'm focused on personal growth, development, and moving on from my old insecurities.  However, when one of my friends started reading a section aloud in our group Discord call, it took me back to that awkward phase of my life.  Instantly I started sweating through my shirt.  Writing this book had felt like a long distant and faded memory.  Yet I remembered those words, and worse, I remembered what I was thinking when I wrote them.  

Thankfully, he only had a small preview which I'd sent out to my (what I assumed to be) trusted friends of many years ago.   But since that horrible night, my friends have been hounding me for the rest.  Yet whenever I attempt to read through it, I had to stop.  I just couldn't see it without seeing my younger self -- the one I've been trying to grow beyond.  But it's time to just power through it.  

I can't think of my work from the 'death of the author' perspective, so naturally the next best thing is perform a public autopsy on the writer I was.  

Chapters