Throwback Thursday

The reposting of my first story

When I first came here to Substack, I didn’t know what to expect, both from myself, or the stories I wanted to post. I didn’t know what length of story I should put up, or even which one I should put in the first place. All I knew was that I wanted to put my stories up and see how they would be accepted, or if the even would.

The first story I put up was THE AFRICAN SONGBOOK: A Tragedy In 5 Acts. It was a story that took place in Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising of the 50’s. I don’t profess to know a lot about the Mau Mau. That was sort of secondary to my whole idea of writing the story in the first place. The whole idea behind the story was the structure. I wanted to make it a tragic love story based on the idea of a Shakespearean play, that is, constructed in 5 Acts. Some of the action happens “off stage”, so to speak. And it was meant to be like that. It wasn’t the history behind the story that was important to me, but the love between the two central characters, and the lengths to which the woman would go to find the man she loved.

I have a saying that floats around in my head every once in a while that my wife said to me about another story I was writing, when I told her it was about a Homosexual love affair. She said: Love is Love. And I believe that. Love doesn’t know the different cultures, or colours, or religions, or anything.

Love is Love, and that’s what all my stories are about when you get right down to it. Familial love is no different.

So I’m putting up the first “Act” of my first story…inviting you in to look at it for Throwback Thursday.