My History as a Writer (1/3)

How long have I been writing?  I'll go ahead and use a cliché, and tell you that I've been writing for as long as I can remember.  More specifically, I used to sit in front of the television with a notebook in which I would draw one curved line after the next, pretending to transcribe the show in cursive handwriting (a skill I hadn't learned yet).  But this wasn't fiction, and it didn't satisfy me for very long.  Soon, I started creating my own stories.

One of my first original stories was a comic strip called "Mix-up Man," a character that could change into anything to accomplish his goals.  The black and white comics were usually a few pages long, and had simple plots that were easy to resolve.  Regardless, the villains were always new, and Mix-up Man would always find new things to turn into.  My need for creativity was being satisfied, but was also starting to grow.  My first all-text story would come shortly after I got my first computer in the early nineties.

My first computer was basic.  Some of you around my age will remember using the computers that had green text and required floppy disks (real floppy disks, that made warbling sounds when you shook them like Polaroid pictures).  I can't remember what brand it was, but I was excited to get it.  It came with some old video games, and more importantly, blank disks for storing data.  Holding those disks gave me a feeling reminiscent of looking at pages of blank white paper; they were waiting for me to add something, to give their existence meaning... Unfortunately for those little, inanimate objects, I was just a beginner.

The first story I wrote on my computer was called "Bonus."  I borrowed the name from the brand of floppy disk I was using, and it also represented the fact that I never wanted the story to end.  There would always be more to write.  The story began with a man who built a rocket in his backyard... something a close friend would make fun of in years to come.  As a matter of fact, he brought the story up again after watching The Astronaut Farmer, a movie featuring a main character who builds his own rocket.  Granted, the movie was better thought out than my story, but my story was something you would expect from a twelve year old who is just starting to take writing seriously.  My story left the realm of reality when the main character got into his rocket and flew to a different planet, suddenly finding himself involved in intergalactic warfare.  What twelve year old boy wouldn't enjoy a story like that?

(Next week I'll go over the "success" of my first short horror story, and my failed attempts at writing full-length fiction.)