It was inevitable

I wrote the birthday card verse for the card for my 4th grade teacher. (the kids asked me to write it)

Years later, I worked as a writer for a greeting card company.

Yes, I wrote my first murder mystery at age 11. Yep, Skull Island. Complete with drawn maps and images for each chapter.

In 1973, my fifth grade teacher made me write "I will always follow the teacher's instructions" 100 times. It was a sign that I was on a mysterious and inevitable journey to Out-of-Control Teenagerland.

MissMacchiato said:

Vito, would you say that you've passed through? or have you missed the last train and find yourself stranded until the next greyhound leaves in a few days time?

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I'm leavin' on that midnight train to Georgia.

MissMacchiato said:

haha, that's awesome.

Do you still remember the rhyme?

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Nope.

That was about 45 years ago.

I write satirical stuff that takes the piss out of every group in the book. Yeah, it was inevitable. I got thrown out of class for rolling my eyes too much once My mom's petname to Dad was Smartass, etc, etc. I was doomed from the start.

I wrote poetry about unicorns and fairies on the back of offering envelopes in church at six.

I drew unicorns to pin up on a bulletin board I kept in my closet at 10 because my mother refused to buy me a horse. They also had saddles, bridles, stalls, etc. I am not sure what I fed them.

I wrote my first novel at 12 about a talking teddy bear who went on a series of adventures to rescue his kidnapped owner involving many death-defying stunts. I think the pinnacle was pulling her into the basket of a hot air balloon without any fingers.

Now I write paranormal comedy. I think it was fate. I was always pretty goofy. I do plan a unicorn novel after my current book. It's all plotted out. He's everything I've dreamed of, but he ain't exactly young virgin material.

DOOD, I fogot about the pop-up book that I made in the eighth grade that was a parody of the standard fairy tale. THAT was definitely a sign.

When I was in gradeschool I wrote a poem about the death of a pet cat that made my teacher cry. She thought my cat actually died.

Today, I consider my special talent to be getting inside of anyone's head and writing specifically to them. Actually this was how I wrote papers in college, and now I write travel marketing material that gets people salivating over our locations. My novels are character-based and everyone always says how REAL my characters seem to them.

Oh, right, and I like making people cry.

MissMacchiato said:

Vito, would you say that you've passed through? or have you missed the last train and find yourself stranded until the next greyhound leaves in a few days time?

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I don't know about Vito, but about me, I'd say choice B fits the mark. Plus I lie a lot. Perhaps I'd better consider writing more fiction.

In elementary school, I wrote fairy tales without magic. They had realistic endings. "And they all got good jobs and were reasonably content."

I now write mainstream fiction.

... yep. In elementary school I used to be the class clown. One of my acts was to stuff my pockets and knapsack with odd things like tea bags and gardening tools. Then I'd pull them out during class and hold them up. Kids got a kick out of that. Not so the teacher :-(

I simply made up stories from the time I could talk, a lot of them. Some got me out of of trouble and some got me in to trouble. Either way, they were good stories. Making up believable BS has been a talent of mine, one that helped me on many college papers.

I wrote poetry as a kid. Now I write PBs which is kind of similar. You have few words to play with and every one has to count. I guess I've come full circle.

I've never known when to quit. In sixth grade, a teacher said if I could only trim about five pages off a fifteen page story, she would submit it to a mag for young writers. Now, my current WIP is over 140k words, and I am struggling to get it to a length that won't get me summarily shredded by agents. Some things never change.