My first books were stapled together with wallpaper covers.  I still have them.  Each day in elementary school we’d draw a new picture on the top half of the sheet and scrawl the next installment of the story on the lines beneath.

I was in Second Grade when my dad told me that although people liked happy endings, the greatest books were usually tragedies. The next day I determined to write Great Literature.  I set out to write a tragedy.

“The Story of Freddy the Octopus” must have made my teacher at Indianola Elementary School wonder.  I filled it with death and tears.  Freddy’s best friend drowns in the clutches of a giant clam.   Then I do the worst thing I could think of – I kill off my main character.  On the last page of the book Freddy the Octopus dies, and his wife and 8 little octopusi are left sobbing salt tears into the ocean.

Kids write sad stories for all sorts of reasons, and it’s good to try out tragedy.  As for me, 35 years later I’m still striving to write great literature, but I know filling the pages with terrible deaths and tears alone won’t do it.  “Freddy died.  They cried.” doesn’t conjure up enough personal emotion in the reader.  But it’s a start.

What were your early books like?  What age did you discover you wanted to be a writer?