I remember when I was a kid and I found my mother's typewriter in the closet. I took it out and started to write. I was playing at first, just punching on the typewriter. I remember I loved the way the keys sounded and how at first I would just play with it, almost as if it were a piano.
Then, I made up a story. I don't remember much about it, I know that it was something that had to do with heaven and hell and a girl was involved. I remember my mother and father loving it and then it was even announced on the entire school, which was honestly very embarrassing, but my parents were like that, particularly my father who would always motivate me to go on.
Anyway, I wrote other things that I can't remember, I had a notebook and one day I got angry about something that I honestly don't remember and I ended up burning the notebook in my backyard with a few cassettes. I have no recollection of what I was annoyed about and sometimes I do regret burning the notebook, but I can't go back and even if I did it's just ashes now.
I think, but I'm not certain, that it had to do with my lack of originality. I felt that everything I wrote was already done and that I was uncapable of doing something new. Maybe I was angry about something else too, but that's what I remember.
It wasn't until much later that I learned that everything had been done under the sun and that it was okay to recycle them.
I also remember one day when I was taken to a poetry house. I don't recall my age. I know I was still small and I was excited to go there in Caguas. However, when I arrived everyone was an adult and I remember feeling scared and really out of place. I was tugging my mom's sleeve and I told her, "Can we get out of here."
I don't recall the poet's name, but I remember that after he spoke all of us had to read our things and I was carrying an old notebook, that one I didn't burn, ha, ha, ha... I actually still have that one, but anyway, I remember all of the adults reading and I was trembling inside, wondering what on Earth was I doing there. Then, when it was my turn, I remembered reading a poem I wrote about joy. In my mind, I thought it was the stupidest thing on Earth, especially since everyone else was reading such cool poetry. I wanted to die in that moment, so when I'm done I sit down and the guy just stares at me. I'm thinking, oh my God it was that damn bad, but what he said stayed with me for years.
He suddenly said that I had great talent, that actually I had a talent like the giants. Then he continued to say other stuff that I couldn't remember and I almost cried that day. Literally, I think there were tears in my face and my parents were so proud of me and I couldn't even believe it.
I have an old notebook, which its pages are yellowish and the cover is brown and the words aren't so legible anymore because the ink is old and it has several colors of ink on it, because that's how I used to write, one chapter was in black ink, another chapter was in pink ink etc. That was the first "novel" I wrote it was titled Fantasy and I even have it typed because my mom wanted to type it. I remember being so proud of it. Now I look at it and sometimes I laugh when I remember it. For me, the book was the coolest thing on Earth. I remember I used to write it on the bed, that's where I used to write everything.
I had various notebooks and I wrote and wrote with pencil and notebook, then I evolved into pens. I even have a favorite kind of pen, it's the expensive pilot pens, those are my favorite pens because the ink just runs so fast. I still use them today. I still have a bunch of notebooks, old and new and although I don't write stories in them anymore, although in very rare occasions I do, I write notes, character files, journals and things of that nature. I think I'm never going to get rid of notebooks. It doesn't matter how non-technological or archaic they may seem, I think notebooks, just like paperbacks are just going to be a part of my life forever.
I have other memories about my first writing moments, but I think I'm going to end these first tales here, for now. Yes. Let's not call this the end, let's call it, the road. The Road.