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[Aqizzar]

The very first "book" I ever wrote was an encyclopedia of dinosaurs, in the 1st grade.  The rest of the class loved it, especially the bloody illustrations.

I think the next thing I wrote was some kind of Victorian heist, inspired by a cartoon adaptation of Sherlock Holmes.  Wasn't much to it.

[Gamerlord]

i started reading rather late, but I read incredibly fast and well now. funny thing though, i used to be able to put my entire imagination down onto paper in drawings, but as my reading got better, i lost that. kind of makes me sad. not much of a writer though. my writing was incomprehensible until year 6, and even then it was hard for my parents and the teacher to understand.

[Jackrabbit]

First thing I ever read? A giant billboard ad for a Mars Bar. I was so proud.

[SalmonGod]

Mine was about how Batman and Wolverine totally teamed up to defeat the army of space pastries.

My brother wrote a story that's pretty famous in our family now about aliens invading and shooting everyone with ringworm launchers.  This was while I was trying to get rid of some ringworm I'd caught from wrestling.

While Wolverine can just keep eating them allowing his stomach to stretch to unfathomable proportions because of his healing factor.

I've used this tactic to kill trolls while cheating in Nethack.  I like to tell people about doing that to give them an impression of how awesome roguelikes are

[Bdthemag]

The first "book" I wrote was either one based on some odd fantasy world I made up or something based on Fallout. That was before I learned what a Mary Sue was.

[Nikov]

Most writers still don't know what a mary sue is. Consider yourself in the upper quintile.

[MonkeyHead]

I dont remember actual written tasks and suchlike, but burned clearly into my memory is the first proper topic covered in school once the whole learn to read and write stuff was covered - Sex Ed. To 6 and 7 year olds. I pity the poor teacher trying to explain concepts like "erection", "sperm" and "intercourse" to pupils that were at the "girls are icky" phase. Considering my less than glorious younger selfs behaviour, the aim of the school probably didnt work. Mind you, I am now a relativley well ajusted adult with barely above average sexual deiviancy who has managed to end up with a family and normal job, so it clearly didnt warp me too bad.

[Gamerlord]

Most writers still don't know what a mary sue is. Consider yourself in the upper quintile.

don't you mean quartile? or is there yet another irritating part of statistics i have yet to learn?

[shadenight123]

my parents never used those, while it would be safer to assume they didn't need to, aka "i was never brought out much".
This had to due with my natural Arsenio Lupin nature, which brought me to escape from the crib, the fence, the kindergarden (sheesh how they made a fuss of that! i just wanted to play some more in the garden!) the elementary school (walked back home straight away, crossed three roads, nearly went under a tir, but avoided it), and had the knack of, listening to my grandmother, teleportation from one room to the other.
One time we were brought out (me and my brother) i tried doing like Moses and parting the "sea" of a little fountain. I walked right through it. Twice.
And it was february.
so, i suppose they would have used the leash, but it was quite less expensive to leave us at home...>.>

[ed boy]

So in conclusion we got that a large amount of people think Child Leashes are demeaning.

Lots of people think they're demeaning, but the few that have identified themselves as parents have been very open to the concept.

Most writers still don't know what a mary sue is. Consider yourself in the upper quintile.

don't you mean quartile? or is there yet another irritating part of statistics i have yet to learn?

A quartile is a fancy name for quarter. A quintile is a fancy name for fifth.

[Gamerlord]

So in conclusion we got that a large amount of people think Child Leashes are demeaning.

Lots of people think they're demeaning, but the few that have identified themselves as parents have been very open to the concept.

Most writers still don't know what a mary sue is. Consider yourself in the upper quintile.

don't you mean quartile? or is there yet another irritating part of statistics i have yet to learn?

A quartile is a fancy name for quarter. A quintile is a fancy name for fifth.

oh, okay.

[Starver]

Probably ninjaed (or drastically re-railing a derailed conversation) as I'm replying from page 1 of 6, but...

I understand that baby harnesses are virtually unknown stateside (and looked down upon, if not in horror) while as in the UK they're acceptable (though not ubiquitous, although I distinctly remember seeing one in use, the other day, by parents and sprog going into a supermarket that I was just leaving).  I've also seen 'leads' going from the parent's hands to the child's hand, as well, which may be considered a more consensual and mutual form.  (Looped around the wrists of both parties, the toddler can 'drag' the parent around as much as the parent restrains the toddler, give or take the strength and power inequality, but with the unfortunate and totally unforeseen side-effect that the toddler can usually only easily get one sticky mit on things he or she wants to man-handle, before being reeled back in, oh what a shame...)


I have absolutely no idea whether I ever had a harness, when I was that young.  I remember a pushchair.  More precisely, I remember an occasion where I was told that I wasn't being taken down to the nursery ('kindergarten', in US (and .de) terms) in the pushchair, this time, and that we'd be walking instead (a good third of a mile!).  But I don't remember getting strapped up.  But if it was a "shoulder holster" style one, almost all the gubbins would have been behind me and I'd have been wrapped up in so many other layers of clothing that I wouldn't have noticed the straps, just the impediment to any undue forward toddling progress I might have attempted.

I do remember (or possibly remember-by-proxy, as there are definitely extant photos of this that could be confusing me) of being in a papoose that my (usually) dad wore to take me along in hikes in the Lake District and various other places.  But we went on so many trips to that kind of place (and usually with bikes, when I was older) that I don't have any actual memories that can be labelled as viewing landscapes from the vantage point of that primitive canvas and metal tube contraption, and not from the back of (say) the tandem.  Or my own bike.

There's also two different bike seats I remember.  One foldaway one, and a bigger glass-fibre or plastic one (it was a number of decades ago, probably would be carbon-fibre, these days) for when I was younger and probably more 'floppy'.  Again, there are photos of this latter (chronologically earlier) one, but there are also photos of the bicycle trailer I was carried around in when I was even younger, but I don't get many memories (false or otherwise) about this.  Pictures of neither seat nor trailer were taken in colour which might provide the memetic disassociation (the papoose photo that comes to mind was colour, which was probably pretty cutting edge, and not taken by my Dad.)  I've found images of the trailer (which was originally a bicycle sidecar, but converted) on this page.  The "for travel and delivery purposes" drawing being the closest in shape (except with two wheels, and towed behind) to my own ride.

Oh, and, yes.  Cycling has played a big part in my life.  Perhaps being strapped into (and later, sat on) various vehicular devices made me naturally more handleable.  (Although there's arguments that the opposite could have happened!)


And, in the batman pane, surely Robin's parents are dead...  Yeah?  (Probably covered elsewhere on the page that snippet came from, however.)

So, now to read some more, and see how many ninjas there are, out there.

[Starver]

My spelling list had words like "traverse" (actual sentence: "I use my body to traverse the playground") in it... oh, and both "tortuous" and "torturous."

Don't know if the paperwork still exists, but my memories of my early days of reading and writing[1] were of in my "spelling book" reaching "C" and really not wanting to put down the word (and picture) of the common objects everyone else was putting down.  So, "Cat" was out.  "Cow" was almost as bad.  I started writing "Car" before realising this was not too original either and so extended it to "Carburettor" (not necessarily with that spelling).  My (still living) grandad had worked with cars and things, so maybe I got that word (at least spoken) from him, somehow.  The picture I drew to illustrate my word was more like a radiator grill (think Rolls-Royce style, although probably inspired by picture books along the lines of Gumdrop), but I think it got past the teacher.  (What they thought about it, I don't recall.)

But I know this is just an unproven anecdote, so you probably ought to take it with as many pinches of salt as you can.


inserted edit: About rhyming and alliteration, when I was in hospital when young (early on in secondary school, so not that young) I remember writing a poem about... pirates in general or Peter Pan in particular, my memory is hazy...  I don't think I had any notion of the concept of meter, but composed my "prosaic poem" in 'ABABCDCD...' form, pages and pages and pages of it, with either the longest, more convoluted sentences[3] or never ending a sentence at the end of a stanza (or even line!).  Except the last, of course, although I've a feeling I was still writing it when I was discharged.  I was (probably wrongfully) proud of that poem, as well, but will have left it behind, to either be quickly chucked out or still be mouldering there, unidentifiable, in the back of a cupboard, decades later, or at least until they had their next big clear-out.

These days, I rarely compose poetry, but when I do I jump at the chance to put it in (Shakespearean) sonnet form.  Just because.  Pretentious, aren't I.


[1] I don't think I was particularly advanced, at first, and I recall being told I was slow to start talking, but later on I quickly became very book-wormy.  I more or less exhausted the story book sections of my primary school (and as part of a small group in my class we actually had a 'rebellious' phase of going back and reading younger-age books that we'd either forgotten, been jumped past or just hadn't been around when we were a year or two younger), so started spending play-times going through the reference library and putting all the mis-ordered books back into their proper Dewi Decimal positions.  In hindsight, it is totally predictable that I'm currently much happier with the written word (and order[2]) that one-on-one interactions with people.

[2] Not that, if you were were in my home right now, you'd believe that.  I desperately need to tidy up.  I have hypothesised that I'm brilliant of sorting and arranging anything that is not my own.  This is often reflected at work, and causes problems when I start off sorting out an anonymous pile of technical equipment, but later on it's now distributed into my separated piles of equipment, where I know where everything is (almost) and I really don't want it disturbed any more.

[3] Nothing's changed there, then...

[Leafsnail]

I'm fairly sure one of the first stories I wrote was Tom and Jerry fanfiction.  Possibly notable only because whenever I realised I had made a spelling mistake I attempted to cover it up by turning the errant letters into miniature illustrations of flowers.

But it usually wasn't about anything in particular*, just words slung together, because I mostly didn't know how to convey meaning--I just thought rhyming and alliteration were kind of cool.

This reminds me of a friend's younger brother I once knew.  He understood the structure and delivery of jokes, but he didn't seem to understand what made them funny.  As such, he would come out with some pretty bizarre ones ("Q: Why was the plant sad?  A: Because it was on fire").

[Starver]

Mine was about how Batman and Wolverine totally teamed up to defeat the army of space pastries.

My first (decently remembered) story was one in which I'd been playing with some chemicals and ended up shrinking myself.  Can't actually remember how (if?) I resolved that issue, but there was a lot about getting down off of the chair I was on.