Every writer, published or not, takes their first steps into the unknown sometime.  Often that moment is lost in the past, a distant memory from school or left to moulder between the covers of an embarrassing teenage diary.  As we practise, our prose becomes more polished and those of us using a word processor have our spelling corrected but the journey begins with one tiny venture.

I have been sorting through a box of papers and photographs from my parents’ house and amongst the old birthday cards and monochrome snaps was – my very first story.  Written a few days after my eighth birthday, it has all the flaws of a juvenile (and handwritten) piece but reading it yesterday I could recognize my hand.  I don’t know why my mother chose to keep this fragment of my childhood ambitions.  Perhaps she always knew I would become a writer in the end.  I hope so.

So, for your amusement here is my very first oeuvre, spelling mistakes and all.

The Three dwafs

Once apon a time there were three dwafs.  The eldest one said

lets go into the wood to pick berries.  Now the yongest said

can I eat some?  Then they went out.  But the yongest aet to

many.  So the others left him wich was a very foolish thing to do

for very soon who should come along but grey wolf himself. Ho ho

ho laughed gray wolf.  I have found my dinner.

When I showed this to a couple of friends they read it and turned over, looking for the happy ending.  But there isn’t one.  Even at the tender age of eight I had already developed a callous streak, it seems.  I don’t think my mother would have been surprised to see I have become a crime writer.  The signs were there, from the very first baby steps.  Thankfully my spelling and punctuation have improved since then and there is always the spell-check on my word processor to spare my blushes but it was rather touching, finding this – and to see just how far I have come over the years.