The first story I remember writing was in 5th grade. I didn't mean to create a story. It just jumped out of me in response to an assignment to write an essay on our field trip to the Boston Museum of Science.
I didn't know where to start. Sure the caveman diorama was cool. And the Lightning Show? That was pretty great. The problem was - all I could think about was how the toy alligator I'd bought at the museum gift shop had been taken from me by some big kids and later I found it just laying on the exhibition floor by the enormous globe.
A lightbulb went on. I wrote the entire essay from the point of view of that alligator, lost in the huge museum.
Of course I don't still have those 4 pages. But I do remember it was the first time I got the recognition that I'd done something unexpected - used a creative approach to solve a problem. I felt the power words could have and I loved it.*
(*I loved it so much - two years later I wrote a science paper on photosynthesis from the P.O.V. of a leaf.)
