Do you remember the first (long) story you ever wrote? What was it about?

Jill here. Happy Wednesday, everyone.

In case you missed it, this summer we’re doing Q & A panels! Each day during the months of June, July, and August we’ll post one question, and each of us will answer it. But that’s not all. We want you to answer too! So read the question, read our answers, read the other reader’s answers, then use the comments section to post your own answer.

Let’s have fun learning all about each other.

Ready to play?

Oh, yes I do. I wrote it in high school, and it was about a failed long distance relationship that I kept inexplicably trying to make work. My first few long books were all quasi-autobiographical teen drama type stories. The first book I ever wrote that wasn’t ripped my own life became Me, Just Different, my debut novel.

 

Mine was for 10th grade English class, and it was supposed to be a short story. Here is what I remember:

A boy and some friends were flying a remote-controlled toy helicopter in the park, and the helicopter went down in a nearby forest. So my crew went into the woods to find it. While they were wandering around, they stumbled onto an old cabin. They went in, of course, and were looking around at the really old canned goods in there and a loaf of bread that was being eaten by maggots. And they wondered who had lived there and what ever became of that person.

I had a plan for the story, but I can’t remember it now. At the point I left off above, I was at twenty-some hand-written pages. (We didn’t have computers in all the classrooms back in 1990, so we still wrote the old way.) Since the assignment had been a short story (five-ten pages in length), I was WAY over my word count. The time came to turn in the story, and I remember showing my twenty-some pages to my teacher and trying to explain that it wasn’t done yet—that I didn’t know how long it might take me to finish it. He told me to turn in what I had so far, and so I did. By the time I got it back, there was other homework to do, and my story was forgotten. I seem to have lost it, too. I’ve asked my mom to keep an eye out for it as she cleans the attic and such. Alas, there has been no sign. I’d really like to read it now.

I wouldn’t again try novel writing (which was what I’d been doing whether or not I realized it), until college. (My roommate had a computer, and I started a murder mystery on that machine—one that never got very far—maybe twelve pages.) And after that, I didn’t write stories until around 2004, when I started The New Recruit, which was the first novel I completed. 

Now, when you say long . . . Truth? The first long story I ever wrote was Angel Eyes. It’s been on the shelf for almost five years now and I still have trouble pitching it! Angel Eyes is about a broken girl who is given the ability to see the invisible world around her. What she sees is beautiful and terrible . . . and dangerous. A battle rages in a place most human eyes cannot see and innocent lives hang in the balance. She can’t simply stand and watch. She must fight. But how do you fight the invisible?

I realize many of us will complete more than one book before we’re ever published. I know my story is a little different in that way, but the truth is that after my first three books came out, I did complete a book that is still looking for a publisher. Our journeys are all so different. Careful when you compare yours to others. We often don’t know the battles they’ve had to fight to get to where they are.

What about you guys?

Tell us about the first long story you wrote.