#TBT To My First Romance

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p style=”text-align: center;”>Peter, Peter pumpkin eater,
Had a wife and couldn’t keep her.
Put her in a pumpkin shell,
And there he kept her very well.

~oOo~

Did you know I wrote my first romance when I was fifteen years old?
While going through an old filing cabinet the other day, I discovered some assignments I had written for my Sophomore English class. Yes, my high school Sophomore English class!
I’ve always loved writing stories, and English and creative writing were some of my best subjects in school. I even recall several occasions where Dearest Sister – who was four grades older than me – would ask me to do her creative writing assignments. When I got into high school, I was placed in Advanced English where we read lots of Shakespeare and were challenged in our creativity a bit more than the regular classes.
My file cabinet discovery contained some of my more…creative…assignments, those intertwining Star Wars, Ray Bradbury and Edgar Allen Poe. But there at the bottom, I found it.
My first romance.
Back in my school days I fancied myself a musician.  And though I was a rather lazy musician (I didn’t like to practice), it didn’t stop me from participating in just about every music group my school had to offer. For nearly all four years of high school, I was very active in marching band and drumline. Almost every day was a rehearsal or practice of some sort, not to mention travel almost every weekend to competitions near and far.
Needless to say, when you live with and travel with the same people for an extended period of time, you develop friendships with each other. To this day I’m still friends with many of my former band-mates. There were others who went on to develop more intimate relationships with each other and I currently know of at least two couples who have gone on to marry and have children of their own.
When tasked with an English assignment to rewrite a nursery rhyme, my mind automatically went to one of these couples, and my first romance was born.
So I took “Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater” and put what my teacher described as a “very creative plot twist” on it. Without knowing it, I took a well known trope – the boy from the wrong side of the tracks – and blended it with a little invention and genetic science until the Hero and Heroine got their Happy Ever After.
Here’s a little peek at the synopsis for “Peter, Peter”. Luckily for this one, I had good inspiration from the real Peter and Sandy who knew they would go on to live their own HEA and have two beautiful daughters of their own!

~oOo~

Childhood sweethearts Peter and Sandy love each other very much. As they get older, they make plans on marrying and having a family of their own someday.  However Sandy’s family does not approve of their love. You see they are very famous in their community and very wealthy, and Peter is just a small-time pumpkin farmer with only a field of pumpkins to his name. Sandy’s family forbids her from marrying Peter and work to break the sweethearts apart.

But Peter is not daunted by this.  He is a smart, educated man who has grand plans for for his pumpkins. By working hard he develops a new strain of pumpkin that grows quickly to extreme sizes. Peter patents his Super Pumpkins and goes on to win accolades and prizes, and is finally able to provide a living for his family.

Peter and Sandy marry and live happily ever after in – you guessed it – a giant pumpkin.

~oOo~

I keep saying that nursery rhymes make the best stories. There are so many ways to take a few lines of prose and put a unique spin on them. Someday I hope to write out and publish my own set of nursery rhymes with an adult twist on them. 

Wouldn’t that be fun!