The first thing, eh? If you ask most people this question, they won't really have an answer. Even the greatest of writers, composers, artists etc. can't really tell you what the VERY first thing they attempted to create by themselves was, because at that early age they didn't know they were expected to keep track of such things. I, however, know exactly what I wrote the first time I attempted to do so. And here it is:

The thing about The Funniest Christmas is that while I'm certain it's my first book(Mom verified it, because she placed it in my baby book right after I finished it), I have no idea when it was really written. I don't think it was around Christmas. The year had to be 1986, because I remember getting all this new sturdy tough paper and getting excited about the prospect of cutting it up and making my own books. And I remember making it in the original house I lived in, which was before my parents divorced in 1987. I was 4. People are amazed I can remember so far back....but I really wish I could remember more than I do.
Ready to open it up? Let's open it up.

If you're going to look for a coherent plot or storyline, please stop now...it's just not gonna happen, okay? However, I did begin writing stories in proper beginning-middle-end format way before I was supposed to know of such rules(they told me to do this in a college class; wow, I was so ahead of my time). But not here.
I don't remember writing this. I do remember making two other books in the series I made out of the paper; Gethsemane Preschool and The Little Prince(which was nothing like The Little Prince, but interesting anyway). I had always assumed one of those had to be my first book; then my mom showed me this one which predated them both.
The bars on the windows indicate this was made after our house was robbed for the third time and we put them on. The use of the name "Mark" means I had to have been in some form of school to pick the name up, likely the "Gethsemane Preschool" mentioned above. And Mark is laughing like Santa; but they all did that in those days.

Obviously a Goldilocks reference....he wasn't in some bear's house, however.

"Afternoon" is written in different handwriting because I found it hard to write and asked Mom to. This is hard to make out from the scan, but the last page here originally said "MARK RAN TO SEE IT THE END," only now "THE END" is erased out. From the looks of it, I later added more pages by stapling them to what was already there, then erased the "The End" and continued. After here, though, all the drawings and words are by my mom...I guess I just gave up completing it myself.

And now you know the REST of the story. You can really see where Mulberry came from this, right?

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