Dwayne Ackley Stories

When I started this site, I was in a tailspin.  My Mother had passed away and I was in counseling knowing full well that losing the scariest monster in my life did not mean I was done with fighting her.

My counselor listened to every word I said, all my fears, my frustrations, my scary memories, the memories that seemed to point to abuse, and the things I couldn’t quite put together.  I will always believe the largest value a counselor can provide is the willingness to listen.

When we came to the end of all my stories she said, “You should write.”  I told her that I had been trying.  I pointed her to this site and even shared some half-finished stories that would start in a fever then lay dormant without any proof of life.

She told me that I was a good storyteller and that I should keep working on it.  “Don’t have an agenda, just believe in the time you are spending on it.”

So, I started using this site and just wrote.  I kept working on my fictional stories that went nowhere.  I left jobs, took on new ones.  My kids who graduated from high school went off to college.

I returned to college myself, and this semester I took a class for Web Design which caused me to pull this site up one more time.  I read through every story and thought through what started me. 

Prompted by my instructor I changed themes.  Then I felt the need to write again.

I started this class after a four-month layoff at the end of last year.  I had a small career change moving from a recruiter role to a Human Resources role.

And the one gift this class gave me: I really want to write again.  I really want to share my stories.  The fiction stories, the non-fiction stories and even the stories that I abandoned like a bunch of scary toys.

I’m going to take the time to write and keep writing. 

I’m going to make the work the end goal not whatever potential outcome there is.

I’m very excited to see where this goes.