The Montana Project

As many of you know, I recently moved. When you're packing to move you come across things you didn't realize you still have -- business cards from three jobs ago, old statements from bank accounts you no longer have, etc.

This move was no exception. I was kind of shocked when I was going through a box and found "The Montana Project," a 27-page novella I wrote as a creative writing assignment in the sixth grade (OK, 27 pages probably doesn't constitute a novella, but in the sixth grade it's basically the equivalent of War and Peace).

I'm not a great photographer (I'm getting my MFA in fiction, not photography), and I've never tried to insert photos in a blog before so this is a dicey experiment at best. But I have to admit, I got a little excited about this so here are some snapshots:

Anyway, you probably can't read any of the narrative, but I can assure you that this novella was far from Pulitzer material. For starters, you can see on the cover that, as I mentioned once before, my protagonist looks suspiciously like Snoopy in his World War I flying ace persona. Not super original. Also, as a current MFA candidate, some of the writing made me cringe. To wit:

* p. 8: ""Cute," I said sarcastically." (Oh man, Phil, lay off the adverbs, ESPECIALLY in dialogue attribution.)

* I had a fetish for using the word "chaps" to describe the protagonists' allies. It's in there at least a dozen times.

That said, "The Montana Project" had a little experimental writing in it that I think was ahead of its time. On p. 15 I used some David Foster Wallace-esque footnotes. I sprinkled in some illustrations throughout the novella (which means it's really only 20 pages or so long). The titular character is a robotic Brontosaurus/Apatosaurus -- I know, shocking, SHOCKING that I would write a dinosaur into my fiction.

Anyway, as I work on my thesis this semester, "The Montana Project" is a cute reminder of my infancy as a writer. The evolution is ongoing.