(I posted this on July 24 on my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/ReidKemper. I'm posthumously posting J.G. Guinn's Sirkay Saga book series on Patreon to raise money for his significant other who has kids from him and has been struggling financially since his death without a job. All money from my Patreon while posting his story goes to her.)
Today marks a year since Jay (J.G. Guinn) passed away. His death affected me a lot since we were friends since high school. I was recently given his story to raise money for his significant other, which reminds me of how the story first came about.
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| Jay (J.G. Guinn) |
I was in the 10th grade when Jay and his best-friend-like-a-brother Del (a.k.a. H.D. Chattin, another unpublished author) shared a class with me. I was the Alpha Director the the Alpha Squad, a group of story creators co-founded in the sixth grade by me, C.T. Smith, and Phantom (I'll refer to him by his character's name since I'm no longer in touch with him and not sure if he wants his name mentioned). C.T. Smith, who created Gyro, had quit the group previously, and the only members left were the creator of Crysilis and Jephrew, who created Zibolt.
At the end of class, I noticed Jay had a story he was sharing with Del, so I approached him. I found out he was a writer and immediately told him about the Alpha Squad. To get in the group, each person had to create an original character with strengths and weaknesses and write about the character. The story Jay had written was called Blue Jay. It may have been around 80 to 100 handwritten pages (I don't remember, and the whereabouts of the story is unknown).
(Next paragraph has spoilers for chapter one.)
When Jay was debating character names, I believe he suggested Kay, in which I suggested adding "Sir" before the name to make it Sirkay, and it stuck. He decided to make his character the son of Jay (named after himself) from his Blue Jay story and made the bold decision to kill off his character Jay and the crew to start the Sirkay Saga. Wow, what a start.
(End of spoilers.)
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| Character art by Arjay Eff |
I had already read his Blue Jay story by the time he wrote the first chapter of the Sirkay Saga, which I thought was great, and I was blown away by his first chapter of the Sirkay Saga. Right then, I knew he was talented as a storyteller and had my work cut out for me to catch up. Del also joined the group later on, creating Chance (I remember sitting in the school auditorium when he told me about his character). Eventually, I passed along the Alpha Director position to Jay, and together, we each wrote our own stories (pumping out a chapter every week when he was the leader): Jay with the Sirkay Saga, Del with the Zendora story, and me with Rendezvous with the Merics (a handwritten story that takes place after Zendora).
We continued writing through high school, but we were split up in the 12th grade when Jay was sent off to Job Corps in another city and I went to another school. Legend has it that Jay wrote 900 pages of the story (that's how much he said he had written in an email to me dated Nov. 2, 2002, when he was in another city). Unfortunately, I never got to read it since he was away and only have 299 pages of the Sirkay Saga (I presume the rest may have been lost when he was homeless). I'm going to be typing up the 299 pages I have of his story and plan to continue the story with the help of Del, who knows more about the lore Jay created.
As the years went by, we all still kept in touch and hung out at various times, so it's disheartening to know that Jay is no longer with us. He is missed, and I hope I do his story justice. Long live Sirkay!
