When I was in first grade, my teacher Mrs. Wigger (amazing that I still remember her) gave our class a writing prompt, in which a man wakes to find himself having sprouted an elephant’s trunk, butterfly wings, and probably another one or two bizarre mutations that I’ve forgotten. Our assignment was to write a conclusion to the story.
Most of my classmates wrote a paragraph or two. I rambled on for something like four or five pages. In my version of the story, the man had been cursed by an evil wizard (for, you know, reasons). He had to track the wizard to his volcano lair, evade a series of traps, and finally destroy the wicked necromancer. Only then would the man be restored to his fully human form.
It was exactly the kind of stupid, action packed, overwrought story you’d expect from a seven year old boy. Mrs. Wigger loved it. She even had me read it into a tape recorder so that she could give the recording to my mother. Sadly, I have no idea what’s happened to that tape in the intervening twelve decades.
Anyway, when people ask me how long I’ve been writing, or interested in writing, the answer is, as long as I can remember. Thanks for the encouragement, Mrs. Wigger.