The First Project

Welcome to the cKotch.Com blog. I’m Christopher Kotcher, and this is the first story written on my own and for myself.

A Writer’s Beginning

Writing had become my focus.

In classroom auctions, I went for notebooks so I could use them for rough drafts. Pages upon pages were filled with every idea I could imagine.

After homework, I stayed at the computer so I could refine my writing. My mom could barely stand the “clickety clacking” of my constant and speedy typing.

Despite my excitement, my writing at the time was a bit basic. My first attempt at a book only wound up being around ten pages of pure randomness. Still, I recognize this work as an important first step in my early days as a writer.

“The Lost Puffin” has been one of my strangest stories. I debated including it in Five Strange Stories. It was my first personal project as a writer, and it certainly shows.

I mean, why start with puffins?

Simple answer. You see, my maternal grandma called me “her puffin” when I was young due to my face’s rosy cheeks.

Such a name would have embarrassed most kids. But not me.

I owned it.

I made puffin an unofficial second middle name. Christopher James “Puffin” Kotcher. I considered using the pseudonym C.J. Puffin as a writer. Before high school gave me the nickname Kotch, my friends called me Puff. A half-serious attempt to make the nickname Puffin sound cooler. I even used Puffin as my character name in games like Pokémon and The Legend of Zelda.

So, it does make some sense to start my writing career with a story about puffins. What makes no sense is the original story itself.

Ten Pages of Pure Randomness

Best way to show my first project’s nonsense is simply to summarize the original story. Please note my stories have not approached this level of weird in a long time. This summary barely even reflects the modern form of “The Lost Puffin.” With that little disclaimer said, let us begin.

A puffin named Puff Jr. was riding on the back of a sabretooth tiger named Lenny.

The pair was fleeing a crumbling glacier. But Puff Jr. soon stopped the action to explain how everything happened.

Everything started on a Monday morning at 3:00 when 200 people raided a puffin colony. The people took the puffins to the North Pole. These fiends experimented on the puffins using two newly discovered chemicals, called Natox and Time-O-Caunicus.

The chemicals sent Puff Jr. to the Ice Age where he met Lenny. Back then, Lenny was a puffin with two sharp teeth jutting from his beak. According to him, the evil scientists had also experimented on him.

Puff Jr. asked how to get home, and Lenny said the best bet was checking a strange glacier where animals were said to disappear. The pair decided to check this mysterious glacier. Then Lenny suddenly grew four legs and turned into a sabretooth tiger.

(This is only the start of our descent into madness.)

On their way to the glacier, Puff Jr. and Lenny took a bus. Unfortunately, their driver took a wrong turn. He led them straight to the lair of a tyrannical dragon named Nazora the Terrible.

Nazora threw his two prisoners into the dungeon in his base at the planet’s core. Then the dragon sensed a strange power coming from Puff Jr. So, Nazora challenged the poor bird to a fight to the death on the Tower of Nazangiogeier.

(I am not kidding. This is the actual name I came up with as a kid.)

Somehow, Nazora and Puff Jr. both battled valiantly for a few hours. Then orbs of fire, light, water, and darkness surrounded Puff Jr. He touched Nazora with this power, and the dragon exploded.

(This must have been written during one of my anime phases.)

The explosion’s resulting shockwaves destroy the tower’s surrounding glacier and lead back to where the story began.

In the present, Puff Jr. and Lenny finally reach their destination. There they find a giant robot. Animals had been disappearing because the metal monster was eating them.

A fight begins. Then Puff Jr. snaps back to reality.

In a vision, he learns he is not really a puffin, but an ancient spirit in the form of a puffin. The Ice Age world, including Nazora and Lenny, was a mental projection. Natox had forced Puff Jr. to turn his thoughts into an alternate dimension, and Time-O-Caunicus rewound this new world to the Ice Age.

(Yeah, this was definitely written during an anime phase.)

Puff Jr. soon learns how to use his powers to heal the other puffins from chemical exposure. The story then ends with a cliffhanger when an unseen final foe is heard threatening everyone.

What the Story Could Become

My first book had four stories set. But I wanted a fifth. Something to help round things out for a better overall package.

Nothing stood out to me right away. I considered several stories, old and new projects alike.

“The Lost Puffin” was actually one of my last considerations. I read the story and laughed at it. Wondered what I was thinking when writing it all those years ago. There seemed nothing salvageable from that mess.

Then some strange feeling made me want to read the story again.

I suppose I wanted to find something good in those ten pages of randomness. This was my origin as a writer. Was it really just one isolated project? Was it something merely to move beyond? Or something more? Did I even want it to be something more?

I think I found something at the story’s heart.

It was the source of many of my own tropes as a writer. If I had them back then, they must contain things I really care about expressing. They show this story may not be so isolated from my other projects after all.

A few of these elements include character duos, colliding worlds, and hidden personal powers and responsibilities. Many other writers use these tropes too, but “The Lost Puffin” was the start of me making them my own.

My first project deserved better than to be left behind in a state of chaos. So, I have revised the story. Removed the random shell but kept the core intact. Ready to be put in something more stable.

My main puffin, now named Ruffle, has simply gotten lost in the Arctic. He wants to return home for his and his beloved’s first mating season together.

To survive, Ruffle befriends a scarred polar bear named Onlook. The two form a friendship, and Ruffle learns the sad truth of Onlook’s scars.

There are no more tyrannical dragons or evil scientists. The story simply does not need them anymore.

The Perfect Finale

At first, I wondered if “The Lost Puffin” should be in Five Strange Stories.

Now I cannot imagine the collection with it.

In fact, “The Lost Puffin” is the book’s perfect finale. This story was my first step as a writer. The first story I wrote because I wanted to write it.

Future stories refined the skills and the themes this story formed. The other four strange stories owe their very existence to my first project. It is only right to honor this story’s latest version in my first book.

“The Lost Puffin” formed the heart of my writing. My first story has informed the rest and has now been informed by them. My later stories lead to their source.

Five Strange Stories could have no better ending.

Kotcher’s Call to Action

“The Lost Puffin” is one of the tales featured in my new book Five Strange Stories, available now. You can purchase Five Strange Stories on Amazon. Five Strange Stories is enrolled in the Kindle Matchbook program, so anyone who buys the paperback can also get the eBook version for free.

If you wish to learn more about Five Strange Stories, check out my blog post One Stellar Success Story.

Finally, if you liked my content and want to make sure you read all my new blog posts, be sure to like my Facebook page and share it with your friends. I post a link there whenever a new blog post goes live each Friday at 5:00 PM EST. Liking and sharing is especially appreciated now when a new book has been released.