jumpstarting the teenage imagination
Friends, beware the cut containing embedded links to books on sale.
FIVE POINTS AKROPOLIS, based in teenage imagination, rushed toward its climax. How did it start? My teenage imagination became engaged and involved in the story of Nicky Cruz and Davy Wilkerson. The latter wrote THE CROSS AND THE SWITCHBLADE, and there, from its pages, a soul was ignited, an "imagination baptized." And I was not alone. Through this work of evangelism cum adventure -- Wilkerson’s TRUE STORY -- I met others so engaged, and two of these became lifelong friends. One joined the staff of Teen Challenge in NYC after she graduated from ORU in Oklahoma.
My first attempt at related fan fiction was called "The Garbage Can Fighter Who Found God." Or was it "The Garbage Can Fighter Who Fought God?" Notice -- those with similar memories (if any are still alive) -- a direct ripoff -- serial numbers plainly inscribed. My imagination was fed also, at that time, on WEST SIDE STORY .
From deeply involved moments among those pages, I desired to take as my setting a nearby neighborhood, one of those lying directly between my "home turf" and downtown. A neighborhood full of mysterious lives (as I imagined) toughened by brass knuckles and flip-blades. (Note the terminology, fused and hardened in the cold-blooded cauldron of imagined passions.)
How successful that teenage attempt was I leave to your own cold-blooded imagination. My high school English teacher, in whose class I fell asleep after lunch every day without fail, and who unexpectedly issued the happy assignment to write a short story, asked, in red notation across the top of my story: is this an original simile?: "Night fell like a mourner's veil."
...Since then, I’ve continued toward fulfillment of that particular fan-fictive quest, garbage can lid firmly in hand ... but without the switchblade and brass knuckles. The tone of FIVE POINTS AKROPOLIS, if not genteel, is at least for the most part gentle. I had given up hell as a subject, theme, template, and atmosphere. And hoped never to find it among my creative considerations again.
Until this climax of my creative career, this FPA, I have of course referenced my early passion (here and there). Again, watch out for the embedded links. I’ll forget to warn you specifically on a hellish one.