Thank you all for your supportive comments on yesterday’s Sarah Ockler’s 1st Book post. As promised, here is the full, unedited text of my 1982 novel adaptation of E.T.

E.T The Extra Terestrial

One day Eliot was having a party. His brother Mike, said, go get some pizza and don’t forget the pepperoni. So, he got the pizza. On the way back, he heard something. He threw a ball and it came back! Eliot dropped the pizza and ran. When he got home, his brother said, where is the pizza? Eliot said, I dropped it. Why? Because there’s something out there that scared me half to death. All right this better not be one of your jokes! It’s not peanut¹ breath!

Mike, this is the best promise you could make. Now take of your shoulders because you may scare him. Here he is! haaa! Who is he? I don’t know. I’m keeping him. Get Girty and I’ll get food. Girty asked, is he a girl or a boy? He’s a boy. Is he a pig? He sure eat’s like one. I don’t like his feet. Shut up you spoiled brat!

So Eliot went to school. E.t drank ten bottles of beer when Eliot was at school. When E.t took a step, he banged into the table and the refrigorater then fell on the floor. He went behind the television when Girty was watching Seseme Street. B is for boot, boy, bat, ball and book she said. Then E.t said, B b B b! You can talk?

Girty dressed him up like miss piggy.

When Eliot came home he said, whats going on? He can talk! What? First E.t said, E.t home phone. Then he said E.t phone home! I think he is trying to call some somebody. But they just left the phone alone.

Soon it was halloween. E.t was a ghost, Eliot was a scarrcrow, and Mike was robin hood. They all went except Girty, because Their mom didin’t like squshy little things. So they made her think that it was Girty.

It was time to go home. Mike left, but E.t and Eliot did not. Instead they went on Eliot’s bike. E.t kicked the peddle and they flew in the air. They landed in the forest. They made a radar out of some junk they brought. It was working. They had to sleep there. But in the morning, Eliot found that the radar did not work and E.t was missing! So he had to go home to his worried mother.

His mom left the room. Eliot said, Mike you gota find him! Where is he? He’s in the forest. in a bald spot. So Mike took Eliot’s bike and went to find E.t. He looked everywere! But then he looked by the river and found him. He took him back to Eliot. He said that E.t was sick. They had to show there mom. When there mom saw it, she screamed! She took them away from E.t.. He was sad. But then Eliot got sick too. So they bolf went to the hospital. They where in a sepret room. But the docters could not help E.t so he died.

Eliot was sad. He went to see E.t once more. He walked away. But just as he left, E.t came back alive! The docter took Eliot away from E.t. They put E.t in a truck. Mike and Eliot played a trick. The trick was, Mike and Eliot took off with the truck. They took it to Eliot’s friend’s. They flew up in the air. They crashed on a dirtty hill. They peddled so so fast, cops where folowing them. They went faster and faster! They finaly got home.

Girty went in the car with mama. Mike and Eliot took E.t with them because there taking him to his space ship. First, mom said by. Then Mike then Girty. Last Eliot said good bye. It was sad. E.t was sad. It left them all with a very broken heart. 😦

The End!

Okay, I’ll give you a moment to reflect and discuss amongst yourselves.

*Waits*

So, what do you think? Be honest, now! Even though strict copyright laws prevent me from publishing my first novel adaptation, I’m still seeking literary criticism from my friends and readers. If you have any constructive feedback or general comments on the plot, character development, pacing, story arc, tense, etc., please share! It can only help me become a better writer!

Okay, confession? I totally teared up when I read the ending just now, thinking about that part in the movie. The part when they’re in the sick tent makes me a little weepy, too. I was a bit obsessed with E.T. after my parents took me to see the film. I cried the whole way home and the only way Mom could get me to sleep was to prop up this E.T. playing card set on my shelf because it had his picture on the front so I could watch him as I fell asleep. Then, I used to fantasize about seeing him in places like the roller rink or McDonald’s, hoping I would be the only one to see him so I could be the one to take him home and help him find his family…

I’ve said too much. Please, I need a moment. Stop looking at me. Just focus on your literary critique, okay?

1. Peanut breath? I was wondering how my six-year-old self handled that one. Ah, so innocent back then!

Many of you have heard that my first book, TWENTY BOY SUMMER, will hit the shelves in 2009. June 1st, as a matter of fact. That’s in 188 days for you numbers people (not that I’m counting). But what you probably don’t know is that TWENTY BOY SUMMER is… er… not… actually my first book.

Honestly. I wrote and illustrated my first book in 1982, at the end of first grade. It was about a little purple-brown alien who was left behind on Earth and found love and friendship with an American family in the suburbs, particularly with a little boy named Elliot. There were a lot of Reese’s Pieces and bicycle hijinks involved. The book, which I also bound in cardboard with red electrical tape, was a loose adaptation — well, maybe more condensed than loose — of a movie I’d seen earlier that year.

Steven Spielberg’s E.T., THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL.

My teacher, Mrs. Tracy, was a little, um, moody back in the day. She would scream at us in front of the entire class if we had dirty fingernails after playing outside and she had very little tolerance for fidgeting. But somehow, she gave me an A+ EXCELLENT!!!. She was so pleased with my storytelling, in fact, that she immediately organized my first book tour, and I got to read to all of the other 1st grade classes in the Library Media Center on the first floor of the elementary school. Back then, “media” meant hi-tech stuff like microfiche and 5-inch floppy disks that really were, well, floppy. Very chic.

Anyway, after the resounding success of my book tour, I rushed home with all the blind enthusiasm of a first-time novelist and shared the news with my mother. She was equally excited and proud, and somewhere during our shared moment of celebration, I asked her to help me find a publisher for my A+ EXCELLENT!!! work of literary art.

And that’s when she sat me down for the copyright infringement talk. Only she didn’t call it infringement. She just looked at me with her big, serious, dream-crusher eyes and said, “Honey, it’s a wonderful story, but E.T. was someone else’s idea first, so you can’t publish it. You have to write your own stories.”

I didn’t understand. Hadn’t I been the one to toil over the detailed illustrations? Hadn’t I been the one to condense a 2-hour movie into just a few pages of intense prose? And it certainly wasn’t Mr. Spielberg who’d bound my masterpiece with cardboard and red electrical tape! Oh, cruel world, with your strict laws about other people’s supposed ideas!

So E.T., my first book, was relegated to a box in the attic, where he would sit for almost 30 years, undisturbed by mold or mice or the passage of time. After his quiet retirement, my elementary school career in literature went on to encompass hundreds of poems and short stories. I wrote journals and essays, articles and anecdotes. I told stories for my friends, made up things about people I’d met and observed and overheard. And then, finally, a novel grew. One that was all my own idea. One that launched my official, non-infringed writing career, all while E.T. sat patiently, silently, still in that box in the attic, waiting for the day when he would be unearthed and rediscovered and given the credit he so deserved for planting the early seeds of authorship in my little, plagiarizing, 6-year-old head.

Without further ado…

Thank you, E.T.

Thank you Mr. Spielberg and Mrs. Tracy.

And thank you, friends and readers, for indulging me as I share my earliest writing memory with you. Now, when you see a reference to the E.T. incident in the acknowledgments for TWENTY BOY SUMMER, you’ll understand.

Tune in tomorrow to read the actual adapted-slash-condensed story of E.T., THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL, by Sarah Ockler!