Under the Coffee Table

So, I've always said I started writing when I was fourteen because that's when I started Blue Fire, my mammoth 160,000 word epic/young adult/sword and sorcery fantasy novel/catastrophe. But while going through some boxes after a recent move, I discovered proof that I was an official storyteller long before that.

Yes, that is my first novel. The Mice in the Toy Factory. Dear God, I wish I was kidding. I wrote this in Singapore when I was ten and some nice librarian helped me put it together and provided lovely plastic binding. Look, it's even got a copyright. So you can't steal this masterpiece.

It has some of the classic blunders of a first novel, like starting the story in the wrong place, an overly developed sense of melodrama, bad self-drawn artwork, and excessive lamination. But it also has some redeeming qualities. Even in fifth grade I had a good grasp on complex sentences and story structure. My opinion of what readers should consider funny was a little off, but hey, I was ten.

Yeah, it should be a coffee table book. It's the right size, the right amount of shiny. Well, maybe an under the coffee table book. Way under.