(Interlude – March 2021.)

~ Greg Dennison

Welcome!  If you are new here, this is not a typical post.  Don’t Let The Days Go By is an episodic continuing story about a university student, set in 1996.  It is a story of living, learning, growing, and self-discovery, amidst a world of alternative rock and the emergence of the Internet into the mainstream.

Last week’s episode was the Year 2 season finale.  I will be taking some time off, during which I will be planning for year 3.  Also, in real life things may be kind of busy and unpredictable for the next few months, so I could use one fewer commitment.  I do not know right now when I will start writing again, but I will someday soon.  If you are new here and hoping for more episodes soon, you can always go here to read the first episode and then just read in order from there by clicking Next.

Just as with Year 1, I made a playlist with all of the music I used in Year 2:

I also added a new “Music” page to this site, with links to the playlists for each year.  And I updated the Dramatis Personae, adding character bios for Abby Bartlett, Amelia Dye, Josh McGraw, and Dr. Gabby Thomas.  I also added a number of new characters to the lists of other characters, and updated some other characters’ bios.  I will be starting a new Dramatis Personae for Year 3 soon, removing people who are not part of the story anymore. I wonder sometimes if the large cast of characters makes the story more difficult to read or follow, or if I need more character development for the other main characters. However, in real life a university student is likely to know a lot of people, and this is primarily one person’s story, not a story with an ensemble cast. On a related note, I have considered, someday when I am done telling the main story, going back and retelling some of the more interesting episodes from another character’s point of view. Or maybe I could start doing that during these interludes, when I am taking a break from the main story.

I take a break like this after every June and December in the fictional timeline.  One of the recurring topics has been the community shared by some of the Jeromeville Christian Fellowship students.  Eddie and his housemates had Haley and her housemates right down the street, and Shawn and Brian and their housemates around the corner, to the point that it was almost like living in a Christian dorm.  In real life, I have come to learn that that kind of community among Christians is very difficult to find in adulthood, outside of the context of being a university student.  I have had a lot of struggles finding a church and a community as an adult, and in talking with people I have come to the conclusion that most Christians just do not have this as adults.  Instead, they have families of their own around which their lives revolve, and outside of that, church friends are just one among several compartments into which life has been divided.  Will I ever find that sense of community again in real life?  I do not know (and COVID has thrown more complications into this, of course).

I have often found that I need to keep reminding myself that, first and foremost, DLTDGB is a work of fiction.  Much of it is based on true stories, but I stress too much about getting every detail right.  Maybe two people who are in the same Bible study in DLTDGB weren’t in real life; that’s okay.  

Thank you all for your support.  Please leave comments.  I wish people would comment more often on this blog; I enjoy interacting with my readers.  If you have any questions at all for me, about anything, please ask.  If I get a lot of interesting questions, maybe I’ll share them as a question-and-answer post next week.  Or offer suggestions and thoughts on my writing.  Some of you a while back told me that my posts were too long, and ever since then I have kept them under a certain length.  Or just say hi and introduce yourself and tell me how you are doing.  I want to hear from you.

Finally, I will leave you with this picture from the oak grove in the University of Jeromeville Arboretum, with different kinds of oaks from all over the world.  I took it in February 2021, the last time I was in Jeromeville.

17 thoughts on “(Interlude – March 2021.)”

  2. That’s great!! I’ll check out this music, and the dramatis personae!
    Yeah- I’ve noticed your posts are amazingly detailed, despite being fiction. ;D
    Ooooh, the idea of retelling the story from different perspectives sounds GREAT. It’ll be a cool way to kinda make the story clearer!
    Looking forward to reading more of your work!
    stay sticky,
    [pbs}

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    1. Thank you! I want it to be detailed enough that it actually feels like 1996, so it’ll evoke feelings of nostalgia for my readers who remember 1996 as well as be informative for my readers who weren’t born yet in 1996.

      I know for sure I want to tell the story about the time I threw the box at Sarah (March 3 and 4, 1995) from Sarah’s perspective, and I want to tell about the time I had lunch with Megan (Sept. 26, 1995) from Megan’s perspective, now that we know that key point about Megan that I was oblivious to on that day (see Jan. 19, 1996). Of course, since I’m not them, it’ll end up being more of actual fiction, since I won’t have any memories of the event from their perspectives to draw on.

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    1. The playlist is just all of the songs I put at the end of each episode. Most of it is the music I was actually listening to in those days; music does a lot for me as far as bringing back memories. It is not necessarily just songs that were released or peaked in popularity during that year; some of them might be songs that were a few years old by then, but it all recalls the same time period, and I was listening to older music in those days sometimes too.

      I said this in another comment above, but I know I want to rewrite the story of the time I threw the box at Sarah (the March 3 & 4, 1995 episodes) from Sarah’s perspective. And I want to rewrite the story about having lunch with Megan (September 26, 1995) from Megan’s perspective, especially after what the reader knows now about Megan (from the January 19, 1996 episode) that I did not know at the time.

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      2. Aww… thanks :) Greg is taking Introduction to Software over the summer (I’ll refer to 1996 Greg in the third person here). Computer science and computer engineering majors get first priority for computer classes, and there are too many of them for most other students to have a chance. Intro to Software isn’t required for Greg’s math major (its prerequisite Intro to Programming, which Greg just finished, is), but there is an upper-division computer class that counts in place of a math class, which Greg would like to take eventually, if possible, and Intro to Software is a prerequisite. Greg is going to have to decide soon whether or not to go on the Urbana trip. And many of his friends won’t be around this summer, including his crush Haley, who will be 300 miles away with her family working a summer job at a day camp for little kids. How will Greg’s summer go? And what will happen in the fall, as Greg considers getting involved in something that many people have suggested to him, and as issues he put aside in the past come to the surface? Keep reading to find out!

        I really appreciate your comments, by the way. This blog has really helped make life a little more interesting in the COVID era, after I lost most of the other fun things I do on weekends.

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