What was the first story you ever wrote?

I was 13. I had already tried my hand at poetry. I had even written a narrative poem as a classroom assignment:

Have you heard the stories told
Of Coronado's search for gold?

Into the New World he came
To win himself both gold and fame.

Don't worry, I'm done. I won't suffer you through anymore.

But that narrative was history, not fiction.

Back to that Sunday evening when I was 13. I had been to the movies with some girlfriends. Dad drove us. He had this rule that I could bring "three with petticoats, four without." (It was 1957)

In the movie, Audie Murphy died at the end, saving Jimmy Stewart's life. I was inconsolable. I went to my room, got out some paper, and rewrote the story so that he not only lived, he got the girl.

Today, I don't mind if the ending is not happy, so long as it is psychologically satisfying. But that film still wasn't OK, to my thinking. There was no real reason for that character to die. Especially if he was being played by Audie Murphy , for goodness sake.

I even wrote about it in my book.

Quote :

[In] his next film, “Night Passage,” he plays a villain for the first time since his “bad boy” days. Jimmy Stewart plays the “good guy” in this movie.... He holds his own [as an actor] against Stewart throughout the picture, [which] did well at the box office, but was not quite the blockbuster the studio thought it would be. Part of the reason for that is that Anthony Mann, who was supposed to direct the film, backed out at the last minute because he didn't like the script, and there are problems with the script. Murphy and Stewart play two brothers, one “light” and one “dark.” In the final scene, the “dark” brother, played by Murphy, dies after taking a bullet for his “good” brother. Herein lies the problem. This ending is somehow not psychologically satisfying. Jung, in his study of archetypes relates that we should not try to repress, or “kill off,” the Shadow side of our personalities, but that we should recognize it as a vital part of who we are, and integrate it. The tendency to block out the aggressive side of our natures was, at that time becoming a national trend, and showed in the movies coming out of Hollywood. We are still trying to overcome the result of this suppression.... "Freedom to Live," A Myth in Action: The Heroic Life of Audie Murphy

Well, you know how it is..When you're 13, there are some things you just never get over.

I still like "psychologically satisfying" endings. I guess that makes me a romantic. I know I'm a Romantic writer according to the definition I learned as an English Lit major in college:

What are the key characteristics of Romantic writers?

Quote :

Some characteristics of Romantic literature (not necessarily of the authors personally) include the following:

1. It places emotion (feeling) and intuition above reason.
2. It often focuses on nature as a force in its own right (not as some 'pretty backdrop').
3. In Germany and France some Romantic literature looked back longingly to the past - often to the Middle Ages as an inegalitarian and Catholic golden age.
4. It is often intensely individualistic. (The hero and the 'genius' behave just as they wish, and taboo behaviour may be glorified, too).
5. The supernatural, the uncanny and the horrific are 'allowed' and often glorified.
6. In writing, the role of originality (creativity) is central. (Earlier literature had often been regarded as a craft, as the recasting of existing, well known topics and stories, but now everything had to be new, inventive, creative, original. This could lead to the creation of grotesque, 'Gothic' literature).
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_key_characteristics_of_Romantic_writers

My current work (I'm also still hung up on westerns) fits most of the above criteria, I think. Like I quoted in the introduction to A Myth in Action,

Quote :

“There is one story and one story only
That will prove worth your telling...”
Robert Graves

Guess I'm still telling it.
How are you telling that story?
Like I generally say, there is no one right way. All approaches are valid.
Ann

My mother kept a story I wrote when I was five or six. It was about Florence Nightingale and I wrote something like: "Florence Nightingale was a nurse. She washed and bandaged the patients and the walls."

That sounds a bit like the rest of my Coronado poem.

Ann

I wrote my first story when I was 13 as well. It was a rather blatant ripoff of Narnia set in (wait for it) Darnia. In those 3 pages I packed a lot of stuff. Some of the ideas I've recycled and I have the original Darnia map with it's doesn't make an ounce of sense geography around here somewhere.

Was one of your characters a talking lion?

Ann

A talking lizard.

3/1/2011


Ann..

When I was 15 I wrote a long poem about President
Kennedy , then the year before I wrote a poem about
Marilyn Monroe, in those days newspapers headlines always
screamed headlines 7 days a week and you made the front
page, at the time I thought both deaths were un-timely..


Cheers..Joe

I was always writing plays at school just because I loved drama. I can't remember what they were about but I was always told I had a good imagination.
It proves too true as I am imagining being a successful writer....

joefrank wrote:

3/1/2011


Ann..

When I was 15 I wrote a long poem about President
Kennedy , then the year before I wrote a poem about
Marilyn Monroe, in those days newspapers headlines always
screamed headlines 7 days a week and you made the front
page, at the time I thought both deaths were un-timely..


Cheers..Joe

And if you believe the rumors today, maybe even connected.
Ann

3/1/2011

Ann..

What rumors are connected to who ?

Cheers..Joe

I can't even remember! It must have not been too interesting.

joefrank wrote:

3/1/2011

Ann..

What rumors are connected to who ?

Cheers..Joe

Did the Kennedy's have the mob kill Marilyn?
Did the mob have JFK and RFK killed?

Maybe Al knows; these rumors get tied in with that grassy knoll thing.

Ann

3/1/2011

Ann..

It's all true, the Kennedys and Monroe were tied
together, she knew too much and in those days that
was dangerous, if it came out in 1962, that would have
been the end of the Kennedy career, people didn't
tolerate politicians playing house. I remember in the mid
1960's I forget what year, Nelson Rockefeller divorced his
wife and Happy left her husband and children, that was a
scandal and he could never run for President, matter of fact'
when Rockefeller died in his office in NYC, it took his secretary
and who ever else two hours to call the police, it's called a
cover up, he was diddling his secretary when he had a heart
attack. Just like when Monroe died it took her Dr.'s and her
housekeeper four hours or more before they called the police,
another cover up, called cleaning house...

Cheers..Joe

The first story I wrote was about some cockroaches who frequented The Golden Nugget Saloon in the ghost town of Oatman, Arizona. They hung out among the bottles of whiskey and bar glasses that festooned the shelf that supported the large gold leaved mirror that covered the the top half of the wall behind the bar. They wore large sombreros and had spurs on their hind legs. The few human customers of this saloon sat on stools that faced the gold-leaf mirror. If the customers drank enough and the light was just right they could see these small sombreroed patrons and hear their spicy stories.

I wrote is for my David so he could pass English. He got an A+.

Love,
Betty

I would think so!! Wow. Cowboy hero cockroaches, how much better can it get?

Ann

Ah! I hope it gets better.

The first story that I wrote for Wooffer, my friend, was Wooffer And The Field Mice. I have learned a few things since the writing of this story. Mostly from my friends here.
But, the Field Mice have not changed and smile every time I post a story about them. So does Wooffer
Here it is.




Wooffer had gone out early to visit the frogs in the ditch, but it was very hot and very humid and the frogs did not come out. He found a yellow lizard with a little top notch and chased it for a while, but it, too, went for shade and hid. The thing Wooffer does the best is rely on his nose when looking for excitement. He decided to go through the broom weeds, and all of a sudden he felt a quiver from nose to tail! His eyes began to shine and he became very intent. It was a smell he had nosed out once before in his life and now here it was again — an earthy, musky, salty smell.

He followed it first this way and then that. Then back over the first way and then again over the other until he raised his nose into the air and he KNEW which way to take! It was a winding trail to a little hole with a grass roof. He began to bark and jump around — that is the way dogs ask if anyone is at home. He had hoped that the mouse would throw caution to the wind and RUN, RUN, RUN! (Wooffer loves the chase.)

But that is not what happened.

He had come upon Old Agnes, Mother of Thousands.

She came to the door of her grass covered house and glared out. Wooffer saw her right away. He leaped forward and then leaped back and gave her his best growl and bark.

Agnes spit and snarled, “BEGONE you uncouth heathen! CHILDREN! Run for your lives!”

Wooffer was taken aback. He meant no harm. He saw the little mice scurry to nearby grass thickets.

Wooffer had to give this some thought. He went and lay in the cool earth by his Mom and considered. He was deep in thought and almost didn’t hear the tiny sound behind the bulrushes. In a wee little voice he heard, “You want to chase?” Wooffer’s tail and ears went straight up. Wooffer smelled the small mouse that was sitting on the edge of a pot before he saw him. The small mouse continued, “You have to promise not to hurt me or my family.”

Wooffer promised. “And,” the small mouse said, “you have to give me five seconds head start.”

Wooffer was standing with his tail wagging and his tongue hanging out just a little. He said, “It’s a deal.” The little mouse looked at Wooffer and had a second thought. He stared Wooffer right in the eye for about a second, and then he took off running!

Wooffer waited. It seemed an eternity. He counted to twenty. Then, he ran as fast as he could, keeping his nose to the ground. He tracked the little mouse to a clump of grass and sniffed him all over. The little mouse was terrified as first. Then he saw the smile on Wooffer’s face and knew he was safe. Now, Wooffer had a friend and the little mouse went home to his mom, Old Agnes, Mother of Thousands.



This story I wrote four sheets to the wind in my deepest gloom for years. It had been a day of working in the mud and mire, smelling the algae of this earth up close and personal, my little dog, Wooffer, who at that time was less than two years old, smiled on my day all day long. He smiled on my lonely night, too.



After a while, I was not lonely. I looked forward to my days and my nights. What a kindness comes out of a small dog. Pure love. It changed my life, gave me vision and hope. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote little stories about his life. The stories filled my days, my evenings. God bless Wooffer.



Love,

Betty

Betty,
Inspiration is how I write, and I see that is fundamental with your stories.

My wife recons the first story I ever wrote and published should have been my resume!!

Betty,

You brought much joy out of sadness. Most folks cannot do that.

Love ya,

Alice

Long live Wooffer, I like mice, Jerry was my favorite.

My first story was JUPITER, and the Eye of Horus© It started this way ::


5000 years ago the people along the Nile valley of Egypt developed a science around the belief that the earth was created deep within Jupiter’s atmosphere, and that as Horus of the Gods, it was expelled and settled into solar orbit. This is the story as it was written.

The Egyptian god Horus is seen here as a hawk with it's wings spread like the gaping mouth of the serpent on the face of Jupiter poised and ready to engulf the adorning Eye!

The caricature is so accurate in detail that it challenges dispute .. while at the same time it gives rise to a reminder that other than as suggested here, the Eye of Jupiter as the Celestial Egg of myth and lore has no other origin of record!/


The Dogon had a story similar to Jupiter and the Eye of Horus, but they believed they came from the Sirius star system rather than Jupiter.

I will be writing about the Dogon and the Sirius star system in my new book, On and On

Sometimes small stories lead to larger discoveries, so it is that there’s reason to believe that the Dogon are related to the Chumash of SW California.

Denial enriches the resources of the ignorant - but one day this will change -- there is Chumash rock art (now protected behind U. S. Gov’t provided barriers) that display the fine details of the Sirius star system as told by the Dogon.

\ james

If industry lied about their products like scientists and historians lie about the ancients (their history and sciences) - the public would be in an uproar

I wrote a story when I was very little about a naughty boy who got in trouble. Sort of an autobiography. lol