What was the first book that made you want to be a writer? Or can you remember the first creative piece you ever wrote?

I am embarrassed to say it must have been Enid Blyton that first got me addicted to reading and writing ('Come on, Dick and Fanny, let's go and explore some caves!' Sorry, the mention of Enid Blyton always makes me shout comments like that - it's like a kind of Tourettes thing). But after that it was Judy Blume. I'm still aspiring to be the English Judy Blume now!

I started writing at a really young age in primary school - but can't remember any of my work then (apart from Madonna and A-ha 'fanzines'. The first thing I really remember writing is a short story about some Bros posters coming alive off my bedroom wall and then the posters of Matt and Luke having competitions to see who could slide down the stairs quickest.

I was an odd child.

Cath

Cath

Big fan of Bros were you now Skip? Funny, never would have thought that...

I think the book that made me want to write was a copy of the novelised version of Star Wars!! My Dad must have brought it when the film first came out, and when I was about ten, only having seen the film about 40 times (all on video natch!) I plucked it down from the bookcase, inspired by the exciting pictures in the middle (I remember working out if I could be friends with Mark Hamill when I was 20, but assumed he was still that age in about 1989) and began reading. Having not really read anything like as exciting as that on my own before, I was hooked, loved every word and began writing my own comedy version of Star Wars, called something rubbish that I'd be too embarrassed to reveal now.

I got as far as the bit where the droids get captured by the Jawas, before realising there might be laws that prevent you from copying someone elses story...

Still, got me on the right track eh?

So Skip, tell us about Bros...

Dav, I'm not your friend any more.

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Actually, for that, I think you should reveal the title of your comedy Star Wars....

(and one day I'll reveal it to the world)

Whaddya mean, luv? I woz just interested that's all. You know I think Bros are a great band anyhoo, and I won't have a bad word said against A-Ha (I'm deadly serious now!)

Please be my friend still, but I ain't revealing that title, oh boy, no way! Come on, I've already given the fact I was obsessed with Mark Hamill away, which must be sadder than any Bros related incident you may (or may not) have. Probably...eh Skip?

By the way, congrats on T n K chapter 9 - its superb. Will hopefully have comments posted tomorrow - running out of time today so wil have to catch up then coz have been blithering (and I mean blithering with a capital BLITH) away about war to silver this afternoon!!!

xxxx

Dav,

You know I think A-ha were Gods and are jointly up there with Wham as the best boy band of all time.

Cheers for T&K 9 compliment. I forgive you now, although I'm still dying to know title of comedy Star Wars. I'll get it out of you one day, young man.

I'm adding my war comment later (trying not to be adversely influenced by strange ex-boyfriend experience).

Cath

p.s. Back to business - has anyone else got any early literary memories they want to share??

Oh, God, I hate to admit it, but Mallory Towers... although not sure that could really be described as literary. And the Chalet School books, which I'd kind of love to re-read and see if they make any sense to me. For some peculiar reason, books about boarding school fascinated me. And I started reading writers like Hardy and DH Lawrence very young, and Anthony Trollope. I think if you read DH Lawrence when you're very impressionable it must have an effect on what you start writing- it probably isn't going to be laugh-a-minute comedy, is it?

Yeah, this is going to be have to be literary in the non-high brow sense of the word!

I can't remember books that I read that inspired me before I started writing, but I did start very early. The earliest 'book' I wrote that I remember the name of was called "The Wolf Who Cried" and I think I was six. There were others before that, but the earliest stories were all 'written' with pictures. The words came as we learned to write. When I was twelve, I used to make up my own Ziggy cartoons, and one of my friends wanted to pay me to fill up a notebook for her. I suppose that was my first commission, though I never finished it.

I don't reading anything as a kid - probably why my writing is so shite now - too much TV.

However I have made up for it by reading with my kids - Enid Blyton's The Faraway Tree rocks and it is so 'similar' to the ideas in Harry Potter...

Beadle

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Grr..

I don't REMEMBER! reading anything as a kid - I told you I was shite!

'The First Men In the Moon', by HG Wells. I'd read 'The Time Machine' four times, and 'The War of The Worlds' in five hours straight, but it was 'Men' that did it for me. I read the first page and cried, real tears, and said to myself, 'I will read everything Wells has written', and I tried but after a while ran into 'Mr Britling Sees It Through' and went in a different direction. But that was the moment when I made up my mind to write, which I've done on and off ever since. My lieftime earnings from writing until 24/12/04 were £5. And that was a music review.

Joe

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now I come to think about it, what I said to myself was 'I won't read any other writer until I've read everything by Wells' - a much taller order.

Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar was a good one. Read it in elementary school and my school's name(no joke!) was Wayside Elementary.

Like Anna, I was fascinated by boarding school books (which made me desperately want to go to one to enjoy Midnight Feasts); but the books that made a real impression were Black Hearts in Battersea, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, The Owl Service and The Hobbit - couldn't say which came first.

I read all the Enid Blyton books I could get from the travelling library - a minibus that came round twice a week. There was also a little magazine that came out weekly, called Sunny Stories, with all the stories written by Blyton. It cost threepence and my mother used to read it aloud to myself and my sister, so I must have been very young - three or four. I remember 'The Far Away Tree'


Later I was addicted to Hans Anderson and Grimm. There was a series of Books called The Red Fairy Book, The Blue Fairy Book, etc,- quite big collections, and it was sheer bliss to find one I hadn't read already.

Comic books were great, I thought - Dandy and Beano were bought for us by grandparents. I was lucky because an older boy who lived nearby had 'Radio Fun' and boys' comics called things like 'Hotspur and 'Eagle' which had proper stories. Once, when I was in hospital with scarlet fever, the family sent a whole pile of these.

When I was old enough to go to the town library I found a book case labelled Classic Literature and started on that. It had foreign literature in translation and I remember Dostoevsky was a big find. How come I had so much time back then? Oh, we didn't have TV, of course.

When I was in junior school I had one of my Enid-Blyton type stories read out to the class by the teacher. In secondary school I was rebellious and wrote a magazine - I suppose you'd call it a graphic novel, these days - which lampooned all the teachers. I remember one of the teachers was tall and thin, another short and fat and they always appeared together doing things like having a bath or buying clothes. I didn't really want to write stories, just depict characters I knew. I started writing a diary.

I read all the Mallory Towers and The Chalet School stories, too. Enid Blyton wrote a series called something like 'The Naughtiest Girl in the Fourth'. No wonder I was so badly behaved.

Sheila

I cannot recall the first books but I think they must have been, like Cornelia, books on Fairy Stories. Hans Andersson and the Brothers Grimm fascinated me.

I believe that Fairy Stories, Myths and Legends throw a light onto any study of Cultures of the World and are the soil from which what we call 'Societies' have grown and developed.

In generations to come I think that Science Fiction and Fantasy writings will be shown to have had strong influence on the changes and developments that all events have upon Cultures.
Len

Like Ani, I don't remember any specific period where I started writing. I can recall being a voracious reader - encourgaed by my parents and through being a bit of a geek. I DO recall being entranced by Elidor, The Giant Under the Snow and another Penguin book about a guy who parachutes down into an underground world (the title of which briefly escapes me), all of which I own copies of now.

The Giant (John Gordon) and Elidor (Alan Garner) are two books that I still recall clearly and think about frequently. Both have a dark fantasy feel and I adore(d) the images of their worlds. Even today, some 30 years after first reading these books, when walking in woods or seeing abandoned factory buildings I'm transported back to these worlds.

Jon