Remembering World Invasion 1978

The first piece I remember writing was a one-page science fiction story in grade five. I had just read about Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds and decided to fashion my own “ripped from the headlines” tale about militaristic aliens seeking to cut-off global communications at a secret American Arctic base.

As a paperboy who read the newspaper each day, I thought that it would be fun to format the story as if it were a Canadian Press news release. I tried to write an eye-catching lede, sprinkled the story with alternating quotes and descriptions from key government players involved in assessing and responding to the invasion.

I was so pleased with my results that I started drawing pictures of my main characters and illustrating a montage of scenes from my story in comics form. I didn’t expect much reaction from my teacher or anyone else but my story captured my own imagination to keep me creating even more.

I remember this piece because it was the first time that I remember receiving public praise from a teacher in the classroom setting. It gave me confidence that I had a quality that set me apart from the others and some talent to develop. At the time, it meant the world to me.

The Impact

I did not grow up to be a metafictional science fiction writer but that experience set me up for success in many ways.

First, it built my confidence in both my writing ability and my approach. It confirmed for me that there is nothing wrong with just “playing around” when it comes with ideas. When I was young, I didn’t worry about the coherence of mixing a few ideas to see what would happen. I just did it. If nothing else, it was fun and writing should always be fun.

To this day, I won’t continue with a piece that doesn’t present some sort of amusement to me personally. If you can’t please yourself, you can't please anyone else.

While it did build my confidence, my perspective has benefitted from sharing my writing with larger groups and wider audiences. While I may have been the best writer with the best idea in a class of thirty students, that didn’t mean that that I was destined to stand our in every environment with every piece I have written. You learn a lot about your style, your appeal and your community by continuing to expose yourself to new audiences. I’m so glad that I’m not still writing for ten-year-olds!

Nonetheless, it was the piece of writing that set me up for the lush life of a literary junkie. For that I am grateful.