Old Stories

The first story I remember writing was for eighth grade English class.  It was, of course, a mystery.  I don't remember much of it.  Except I can remember the cover art I drew.  The story was something about a bunch of people in a house and there's a murder and the corpse has bloody fingernails.  The murderer is caught when the scarf is pulled from her neck, revealing scratch marks.  Tada.

I think I still have it in a box somewhere.  If not, it got lost to time and the many moves I've made over the years. 

After that, sometime in high school, I worked on a collaboration with my best friend at the time, Maria.  She had already started writing this fantasy / scifi crossover novel.  Probably late one sleepover, we started working on it together.  Then I took it over.  I still have all of it.  In a box in the storage closet.  One of these days, I need to find a way to get it copied and sent to her, if I could find her.  I know if it was me, I'd want it just for the nostalgia. 

I still have several of the papers I wrote for my two college English courses.  Ugh, they're bad.  I trotted them out years ago to show to the Kid.  Sort of a 'hey, look how you can get better at writing' thing, I guess.

My computer is filled with stories I've begun and never finished, and finished but never published.  Some of them are still viable, some aren't.  The romances I began when I still wanted to write romance.  The little attempts at things.  The epic SF that was to be told in three parts.  (Got about a third of the way through Part One and set it aside.)

New stuff is always popping into my head, waiting to be written, but the old stories are still there.  They always will be.

What about you?  What was your first story?