the Introduction from
'The Complete Short
 Works of Daniel Pagoda

The second story I wrote and lost was called “Shorty,” a cautionary tale of magic wands, which was as tightly plotted as an eleven-year-old could manage. I entered it in the Young Authors Contest, an elementary school competition open to those who considered themselves writers. “Shorty” won that year.

I tried hiding it better than the last story I wanted to keep. But Fate knows all and sees all, and now I can only imagine “Shorty” and the green slime alien are playing Marco Polo together in the ocean. I suppose these things happen.

Drunk with the confidence my new title granted me, I, the “award winning author,” decided the next logical step would be to attempt a novel. “Novelist” was about a writer who follows a bestseller with a true-life crime book. My friend Fate made a small cameo, ensuring that the subject of our hero’s book escapes prison and tracks the author down for it. Forty pages later, I had a mental breakdown, or as close to a mental breakdown as a sixth grader could have, and threw the pages away.

If I knew how to bribe Fate into taking Novelist to the Island of Lost Stories, I would have dressed it up as best I could and shipped it off, but I don’t think the disguise would have fooled him. Fate is all-knowing and all-seeing. Fate didn’t come. I have not been able to get rid of those damn pages since.

Almost a decade passed without much creative productivity, but as college opened its doors to me, I soon picked up where I had left off eight years prior. I celebrated a new found love of writing and story-telling with possibly the most embarrassing story I could have written.

Most writers will admit that the question we are most often asked is “where do you get your ideas?” I’ll vouch for its volume, but in my experience, the question “What made you want to become a writer?” is always voiced first.

I have always answered this question with an asinine reply to lighten up the question-and-answer sessions: “I got into this business for the peril and danger of book signings. I was misinformed.” But now that the giant grandfather clock in the sky could toll for me any day now, I might as well clue you in on why I originally decided to become a writer as a child - but not just yet. We’ll save that for later.

As for the other question, I’ll be glad to answer that now: magic notebooks.