Secret Fiction

One More Thing In Common

Technically, the very first fictional short story I ever wrote was fan fiction, Star Blazers to be exact. This was middle school, sixth or seventh grade. The famous Japanese science fiction anime had finally made it to American television, daily, channel 29, right after school.

In fact, in order for me to make it home in time, it was faster for me to run home. If I took the bus, I’d miss it. So I ran.

At some point in the middle of the school year, I started writing my own Star Blazers fiction. I had to hide it. This was a Catholic school after all. That sort of thing was frowned upon.

But mostly, during that time in my life, I had disassociated enough from my ‘real’ life at home that writing fiction became an escape. The story got pretty long, 20 or 30 pages in a spiral bound notebook if I recall, written in between classes, or sometimes during class.

That was my undoing.

I was caught. My notebook was taken away. It was never given back. I pled my case to my parents, but to no avail. They had bigger things to worry about at the time. So, it was lost.

The other night, I discovered that my daughter is also writing fiction. Secretly. At school. Not in a notebook, but online. She’s writing dragon fantasy, based on a series of books called Wings of Fire. So, she’s writing fan fiction as well.

“Sometimes, school is boring,” she said by way of explanation.

The difference here as near as I can tell is that she’s a straight A student. I was not. I struggled badly in middle school. Perhaps that makes a difference.

“You’re allowed to do this?” I asked her.

She nodded. When their work is complete, they can engage in other activities. She sometimes chooses writing.

Her work is good. Better than mine at that age, certainly. She’s not ready to publish it here yet, or anywhere. She gave me permission to mention it here, but for now, this is something just for her. But I’m glad I found out. And I’m glad she’s letting me read it. I’m not even editing it, or making suggestions. Just reading.

After the Star Blazers disaster, I became more careful. If taking the notebook away from me was meant as a writing deterrent, the nuns obviously failed spectacularly. I branched out, began writing original fiction short stories. If memory serves, one of my first originals was a ‘horror’ story about a community of house spiders that join forces to spin a super strong web and trap the resident human so they could eat him. (I was REALLY into Stephen King in those days.)

I still have many of those early stories. Maybe sometime, I’ll run one here. Or, more likely, when she’s ready, I’ll let her read them first.

We DO have to work on that whole boring school part though!