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This is apparently a big month for authors. I can’t tell if NaNoWriMo is the cause or an effect of this designation. Either way, I think it will be fun to use the Tuesdays in this month to shares some author experiences. Every person has a different journey, which means everyone can be a teacher and a student in this world. How can we start this little adventure?
What was the first story you ever finished writing?
To be clear, I’m not going to say completed with editing. First drafts are fine. It’s all about the first story you wrote from beginning to end, which I’m sure gave you a sensation is unique. You can never recapture your first, true ‘The End’.
Mine goes back to when I was 7. I had already written joke and animal books during my writing time in school. One day, I wanted to try my hand at writing a story with characters and a plot. This was going to be a present for a friend whose birthday was coming up. Can’t remember the exact name, but it was along the lines of ‘The Quest for the Ruby Monkey’. I know that because it involved a doctor, woman, and other person traveling into a jungle to find a monkey-shaped ruby. They had to get through traps, which usually killed a character who wasn’t there before. Eventually, they found the gem and the giant gorilla protecting it. Obviously, this was inspired by the original ‘King Kong’ movie, which I had just seen.
If we want to go for more mature and serious stories, my first would have to be ‘Immortal Wars: The Summoning’. That was my first novel, which I’ve posted here in its entirely.
So, what was your first ‘The End’?
Legends of Windemere 
I was probably the same age–7 or 8. My best friend and I wrote stories together. We shared characters in common. I might still have some of those stories. But the longest thing I wrote back when I was a kid (and I was probably about twelve) was around 107 pages of loose leaf notebook paper. No idea where that is.
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That’s impressive. I have a satchel full of joke and animal books I made at 7. Couldn’t get more paper at a time, so it was always short books. Ever revive any of those shared characters?
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We thought about it. But both of us had moved on. She concentrated on writing plays. I turned to high fantasy.
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Interesting diverging path.
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I wrote this huge tome thriller about a guy who wanted to control the world. I remember the word count was in the 140,000 range. I printed off the MS to edit and after about 50 pages, I decided it was the worst crap I had ever read. I used it as a doorstop for a number of years and finally put it in recycling.
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Ouch. Though I guess every author has that doorstop project.
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I have one a litle less than that size. It is in a bureau in my living room.
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I scrapped mine years ago. It was a coaster instead of a doorstop.
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I’ll bet they do.
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I started but did not finish several novels in high school, but one summer between my junior and senior years college I again challenged myself to write one, just to see if I could do it. And I did! I finished it during my senior year. And I started reading it to my friends in the dorm. They would eagerly ask when the next chapter was done. So, awful as it was, that was my first completed novel!
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That’s really cool. Great to have a loyal audience at the start.
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I wrote things in school, like everyone else. My first novel was written on the first generation iPad using two thumbs. Not an efficient way to write. It and the second one were so terrible I’ve never shared them with anyone. I think they’re still on my iCloud storage somewhere.
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I can’t imagine how tough that would be. Ever think of looking at them again to see how far you’ve come?
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I have, but time is so valuable I didn’t do it. I stole some things and recycled them. Gave a character a new name and he became Jason Fogg.
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Literary cannibalism is an author’s secret friend.
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I kind of remember writing some stories when I was little, but the first I can really remember is my first “book” that I wrote in high school, a fantasy story inspired by a Terry Brooks novel I’d recently read at the time.
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Very cool.
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I was about eight, and it was a story written in Welsh about sharing Ready Brek (a children’s oat-based cereal that’s kind of like runny oatmeal with extra vitamins added to it) with aliens. I wrote it for a story writing contest my teachers let me enter even though I was younger than the others entering I still have the third place medal I won in that contest.
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That’s awesome. Although I’m not sure I’d like that cereal.
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Perhaps not, but I was a big fan of it as a kid, as you might have guessed. LOL!
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