Me and Cat were talking recently about the stories we wrote as teens. I was consumed by a melodrama that has only matured somewhat.

As we were talking I remembered the feel and texture of one of my notebooks – a recycled-paper thing, with flowers on the cover. Shortly after I got my own room for the first time (can I be remembering that right? At 11/12?) I started sitting on my bed for hours at a time, writing. We’d just had all the carpets steamed, and writing was a good way to escape the smell.

The story I put in that notebook was this:

A girl was travelling on a ship from one continent to another (I’ve just remembered, it was a diary!). She and a raggedy ship-boy came to understand one another, if you know what I mean.

Then there was a terrible shipwreck! Shock! Horror!

Lucky for her, she was saved by a merperson colony on the seafloor. Then she had gills cut into her throat and became a productive member of society. She married a nice merman.

Then one day a dashing stranger turned up – a human! I can’t remember how long it took her to realise what I am sure is already clear to you… Twas the ship-boy, and he’d never given up on her.

He underwent an initiation ceremony, which I think involved fighting a shark and, of course, having gills cut, bloody and rough, straight into his lungs.

Move over Stephenie Meyer.