In the Beginning: Page One

The first writers lived in caves and told stories around the fire. They wrote on walls with charcoal, and used pictures instead of words. They were men, like me, telling hopeful stories about naked women dancing around the fire as they watched from a reclining position on a mammoth-skin rug and sucked marrow out of the tusks. Well, that's what I get from these early stories, anyway.

But my story as a writer isn't quite that cushy. It's also a heck-of-a-lot more fun.

I actually wrote my first "story" when I was three and half (according to my mom). I drew a picture of the tuna on a Starkist can and regaled her with tales of the sea.

In school, I was something of a loner early on. I sat by myself in the back of the class (still do) and wrote and drew pictures while the teacher tried to keep my attention selling charts and graphs on the blackboard. I bought none of it. (Still don't.) And even from the age of ten, all I wanted to do was read and write. These proclivities, however, were not the product of a great mind. In fact, my intelligence ain't too high. I don't think great thoughts. But I can write about them.

And then, once, in third grade, the teacher asked all of us the question: "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Jimmy said he wanted to be an astronut. Susie said she wanted to be the dictator of Lithuania. I said, "I want to be a writer." Everyone in the class laughed, including the teacher, who took me aside after the class and explained: "You'll never find an agent kid, and your packets of stories, poems and novels will be rejected outright and used to light the publisher's pipe. I suggest you focus on planting lima beans. You seem to have a gift for stuffing things up your nose. But writing . . . don't give it a second thought, bozo."

I was nine years old at the time and knew I was off to a great start.