The Chicken and the Writer

I’ve always been a writer with dreams of being one of the most famous novelists in the world.

I started my first novel at age twelve and, after years of procrastination and world-building, finished it at sixteen. It wasn’t the best thing, but I showed me so much about writing and what I could do that I decided to turn it into a chronology and am still working on it on and off.

That novel didn’t make me a writer though.

A chicken did.

A chicken I got for Christmas and lacked a name.

I tried making up some names like for characters in my book, but they didn’t work. It seemed like my chicken, a Silver Spangled Hamburg cockerel (pictured), would remain nameless forever.

Then one night, I had a dream. A dream about my chicken.

I was looking through the catalog of the hatchery that my chicken had come from and saw his picture taking up an entire page as a multi-prize winner. The name on the caption was Elfboy. 

When I woke up, I wrote down the name immediately, adopting it not only for my chicken’s name since it fit perfectly, but seeing in it potential for an amazing book.

I spent probably a month just toying around with the idea for a book titled Elfboy. Nothing came for a while… until I took on a private challenge to try and create one of the best characters in the world. I wanted to create a character that every reader would fall in love with, and Elfboy seemed the perfect starting place. It pretty much worked too; eight out of thirteen beta-readers had the same favorite character, along with me.

I plotted, drafted, and typed out the book in six months with plenty of beta-reader feedback along the way, most notably my sister, who provided some really awesome encouragement. Now, it’s awaiting a final edit before publication.

Like my first book, it’s not the greatest, but it really made a writer out of me. I can’t wait to share it with you later on this year!