How Far Have I Come? FREE DOWNLOAD!

So I’ve kept a few things from my childhood that have stayed with me over the, er, many years, since then. I have handwritten stories in ancient spiral notebooks, report cards, and assorted odds and ends that would mean little to anyone other than myself.

One item I resurrected while perusing my memories pile is a short science fiction story I wrote in high school. I’ve handled it before along with other papers, from time to time as I shuffled things around, but this time I actually stopped, held it in my hands, and really looked at it.

December 20th, 1981.

Wow, that was a really long time ago. I graduated from high school in 1984 so that must have been my sophomore year, and I must have been around, er, 14?

Then I started reading what I had written, and realized a few fundamental truths.

1. The story mechanics need a lot of work! There are typos and misspelled words, sentences that need to be rewritten for better clarity, adverbs to remove…typical corrections to a draft work. Oh, a bit of head hopping too.
2. The story’s plot needs a lot of work. I enjoyed the beginning, and there was some action that was fun to read, but then things abruptly switched over. I liked what it switched over to, but the transition needs work.
3. The main character needs more background to become believable. As an average human being, he does some pretty extraordinary things.
4. I LIKED it!!! Yeah, it needs work, but the frame to an interesting sci-fi story is there, and I can flesh it out.

My teacher, Mr. Rich, had written some helpful notes on the cover. I never paid much attention to them at the time, but now I nodded my head at each one. Yup. Yup. Yup. Got it!

I decided there and then I would share this story with my fans. More than that – I would use it as a teaching tool and writing process demonstration.

I will transform this story into something I’ll consider publishable, for lack of a better term. I’m not sure I will devote the time to make it truly outstanding, at least in my mind, but I want to demonstrate how to take a draft, even written when I was in my teens, and improve it applying the writing skills I’ve learned over the years since then.

I have another reason this is important to me now, but you’ll learn about that within the next few weeks, time permitting. (I love to tease, don’t I?)

So, here’s the deal. Enter your email address in the box below, and you will then have access to the version 1 file. This is a pdf of a “readable” version, minimally edited, to keep it as close to the original scanned version as possible. If anyone would like a pdf of the original scanned version before I ran OCR software to convert the image to editable text, just use the Contact Me page and let me know. I will email it to you.

Next step, I will begin the rewrites, and you will have access to each new version so you can compare to the original. I will explain with each revision what my intentions were, and you of course can judge if I succeeded! I am hoping for lots of feedback as I walk through the revisions. Questions and comments are greatly appreciated. I plan to do three revisions, then ask YOU for your comments, and revise one last time applying the feedback from my “beta” team. This is how I write, from raw first draft to last, polished form, with the caveat that I may do more than just three revisions.

At the end, we’ll have a final, “publishable” version for everyone who has followed along to enjoy.

Download your FREE copy now, and please share with your friends so they can join in! The more feedback I receive, the better the final version will be, and I’d love for everyone to share the writing experience along with me.