Last updated July 17, 2016

Who’s this guy? Well, duh, this guy is me, under a pen name.

OK, why the pen name? Because Sybly Whyte writes some very odd stuff – stuff that is nothing like my “main line” work. Because I have the strong feeling that people who like Sybly Whyte stuff are not going to be big fans of Richard Skinner, and vice-versa (although I would be happy to be proven wrong). They are just that different.

Right now, Sybly is writing and publishing what he calls the Tales By The Road short stories. These Tales originated with a strange narration that came into my head one evening, just at the time when I was somewhere between comfortable drowsiness and real sleep. The “narrator” was a road – telling a story about a man that was walking along it.

OK, an interesting idea, maybe I’ll develop that some day – there have been stranger premises for stories after all.

But it refused to leave me alone. The tale of a simple man, enjoying the simple pleasures of a pleasant walk along a country road – just kept growing longer, and longer, and longer…

I finally gave up. Rose from my uneasy drowse, fired up the word processor, and wrote the first draft of the story. Then finally managed to get to sleep.

Really, I thought that was the end of the matter. Foolish me, neophyte that I am – writers just don’t work that way. Two nights later, I had another narration start, another set of scenes dimly appear in my mind – a very different setting, but the same road narrating it. I managed to put that one to sleep with just a précis. Then it happened again… and again… Finally I ended up with one first draft, and eight files with more or less of other stories, which had as their only real common feature that they happened on or near The Road, and were being told by The Road. (Note the capitals – The Road had become a full character to me by then.) I’m still feeling even more of these that are churning just below the surface of consciousness.

Sigh. This writing life is not what I thought it would be. I can’t get much done on the “real” stuff when these stories are screaming to be written down, refined, polished, and published. Might as well bow to the inevitable, and start getting them out of my system. Experienced writers reading this are now snickering – yep, the newbie is learning…

So, the “real” work is still forthcoming. It will eventually be finished, and published under the name my parents gave me – and be nothing like these short Tales By The Road. In fact, there are probably going to be several of the Tales published by the time anything else shows up – the plan right now is to produce one of these a month, at least until the ideas dry up – which will be a while. One a month, that is, after the month in which I am writing this: July 2016 will have two Tales, as the first one is a very short “origin” story to set the scene for the rest of them, followed by The Simple Man and The Lass, which is the one that started this whole business.

I’ll keep this page updated as each of the Tales actually becomes available on Amazon. So, if you happen to be that rather odd person that enjoys these, check back here every month or so for the latest.

Click on the cover or here for The Simple Man and The Lass – available to purchase or in the Kindle Unlimited Library.

A simple Man. A lovely Lass. A most curious and ancient Road that tells the tale of their meeting in the green youth of the world. To Erkol, the first human (?) that has ever paused to listen. One in the series of these rather odd Tales By The Road. Guaranteed to be message free – I hope that you find it to be light reading for a lazy summer afternoon – or any time.

Click on the cover or here for Tales By The Road – available to purchase or in the Kindle Unlimited Library.

Roads, pathways, trails. We walk on them, or drive on them, just about every day of our lives. One day, I stopped dead on one, with a curious thought – what if this surface passing under my feet could talk? Curious notion, maybe I’ll think about it later. A writer, though, has a rather odd mind – this refused to go away; more and more Tales came creeping into my head. Sometimes one must succumb to the call of the Muse, if they are to get anything else done… First in a series of these rather odd Tales. I hope that you enjoy…