Welcome and "The Great Emerald"

Welcome to my writing blog! I'm Cat Carlisle and I'm new to writing. I've finished two novels (thanks to National Novel Writing Month) and have written a few short stories. Nothing published so far, but that's okay because my goal right now is to improve my writing and to find some interesting stories to tell.

So what's my writing history? Not much, really. I was one of those kids who had lots of ideas for stories but never wrote more than a couple pages before giving up. Since I'm a little nervous talking about my current projects, I though I'd start off my blog by telling you about some of the stories I attempted to write when I was little.

I'll begin with "The Great Emerald," also know as "The Emerald Game". This was the story that haunted me throughout my childhood; I must've re-written the first chapter a dozen times but never got any farther than that. It was about four children who find themselves transported to a far-away land and must recover a magical emerald with the help of their animal companions.

Boy, was this a Narnia rip-off! I even used the name "Glenstorm" for one of the animal companions. I did a lot of drawings to go with it of the main character (me, obviously!) riding on her magic lion. The other three children were poorly disguised versions of my best friend, her sister, and whatever guy I had a crush on at the time. Here you can see the four of us meeting the Emerald Queen.

That's me in the red dress. Apparently I'm nearly blind so my friend in the blue is having to lead me around. Thank goodness there's a magical amulet to fix that! I think I was more interested in illustrating this story than actually writing it. Here's a lovely drawing of me riding on my lion (you can also see a bit of another drawing of the lion bleeding through from the back of the page).

I'm not sure why all the girls are wearing aprons,I suppose I thought they were cool.

My favorite line from chapter one comes from the Queen, who apparently has a very short temper with these kids she's forcing to do her dirty work. After my character asks how she can possibly go on a fantastical journey when she can't see, the Queen answers rather pissily:

"Alright, alright! Each of you will have a jewel to wear on a belt, for you, Charles*, and necklaces for you, girls."

(* Name has been changed because it was the name of a guy I had a crush on, though honestly I don't even remember who he was!)

 There you go, just slap on a magic necklace and problem solved!