Formative Years Fiction - GOLD MINS AN ADFANCHER STORY

New feature! Formative Years Fiction will be a chronicle of written works from my childhood years that have been preserved and exist to this day. I did not think of this idea unprompted. You see, lately I have been enjoying (enjoying so much!) the webcomic Axe Cop. Axe Cop is a web comic written by a 6-year-old (5 at the series' start) and related to his 29-year-old professional comic book artist brother, who illustrates the adventures. The work neither mocks nor patronizes the young author's imagination, instead giving professional level expressive tools to the unfiltered mind of a child. It rules.

I was a creative kid, but nowhere near as creative as the little genius behind Axe Cop. I also had no older brother to turn my ideas into pure comic magic, only a mom who saved my periodic works of fiction. Because sometimes I wrote. Often for school, sometimes for fun. Below is my earliest surviving written fictional narrative, penned at age 6. It is a tale of action, suspense, and triumph. I wanted to call it Gold Mines: An Adventure Story but at age 6, could only manage GOLD MINS AN ADFANCHER STORY. I dared not flatten the memo pad it was written on in a scanner for fear the binding would come apart, so it is in the form of several photographs. A transcript is available below the images.















Transcript:
GOLD MINS AN ADFANCHER STORY

A GOLD MINER WAS DIGING A HOLE WHEN HE FOND
A MAP IT WAS A TRESHER MAP HE FOLOD
THE MAP TO THE DESERT WHER HE FOND
A CAVE HE WENT IN THE CAVE IT WAS DARK
HE FELT SOMETHING IT FELT LIKE SOMETHING HE FELT
BEFORE IT WAS A COLED SNAK GARDING
A KEY AND A DOOR
IN THE DOOR WAS GOLD HE ATAKD THE SNAKE
UNTEL HE KELD IT HE GRABD THE KEY
AND OPIND THE DOOR AND
GOT THE GOLD AND BOHT A NEW HOUSE

ABOT THE AUTHER THE AUTHER MATTHEW Remus! HAS ALOT OF TOYS

There are many questions left unanswered. Why was a miner digging a hole? Why did he need a map to find a desert with a clearly visible cave? Why had he felt a (coiled/cold?) snake before? Why was the snake guarding a key and a door? Who locked the door and left the key so close by with a snake? Why did Remus Thirty spell snake two different ways two pages apart? Sadly, no sequel exists to GOLD MINS AN ADFANCHER STORY. However, not all is lost. For while 6-year-old me did not have a 29-year-old brother who could draw, 26-year-old me who can draw DOES exist. Here is a special artistic rendering of GOLD MINS AN ADFANCHER STORY.