how to not win the lottery [retro]

a meta post about an old short story written by me almost a decade ago

Wait, what’s this? A [retro] on a story I haven’t released on Substack?

Here’s something I figured only people willing to spend money on my writing would care about or be interested in: a 5,000 word short story I wrote circa ten years ago, about a young man struggling with self-worth, guilt, and the loss of innocence. I dug it up from a folder on one of my old laptops along with dozens of other pieces of varying length and quality from a time before I had anywhere to post my work.

Those who have read the novel and my work at large will recognize some of the themes here. There’s even a Bell’s Palsy affliction like Jude gets in the big T. There’s also working in the grocery industry.

I would never publish this story now, because—as you’ll read—I was a far inferior writer then; but I think it really shows how much I’ve grown in the time since and my regular readers may find it interesting to see how some of the themes that pop up have coalesced and found themselves in my present work.

I’m going to use footnotes here to give you my thoughts on my prose and the story at large. Hope you enjoy this insight! If you do, there are more archival stories where this came from, including some incomplete ones.