Way Past the First Entry

I would have updated my journal sooner, but I didn't have one. I had to make one for myself.

That necessitated a string of events: first I had to dig out my shelter, as you do, then punch a tree into blocks and convert these into planks and sticks, then tools. I built my little crafting table, fashioned a pick, and went to work on the ground beneath my feet. When I had enough cobblestone, naturally I built a furnace, and the rest is details.

Your humble author, Thoreau, before his palisade.

Suffice it to say, it was not long before I had a secure shelter and all the ore and coal I needed for serious business. The wheat, however, was another problem. Extracting a sufficient number of seeds to even begin planting proved a deuced task, and then it seemed they took forever to sprout and yield. I found it much quicker to simply wait for the spiders to turn up, slay as many as appeared, then use their webbing to construct a serviceable fishing pole, as you do.

When daylight returned, I found a nice little spot where tuft of azure bluet bloomed beside an oak tree, and I took this for a significant pastoral marker. I took a deep breath, cleared my head, and set all my anxieties aside as I fished for the entire day. My stomach rumbled but I insisted that patience prevail, and soon I had a load of both salmon and fish (plus an odd assortment of the most amazing things floating in the water, apparently), and I cooked up my dinner in my little stone shelter and ate very well that night. There is little else as gratifying as preparing your first meal by your own labor. I'd rather it had been a solid lump of bread, but as the wheat stubbornly refused to produce, I was nonetheless grateful for the sacrifice of these lovely fish.

To save a little time: once my food was secure and the crops began to produce, I found some chickens who delighted in my spare grass seeds, and I finally had enough wheat to begin breeding cows and sheep. Once the cows were numerous, I cut them down as mercifully as my manly strength could enforce, and many of these provided usable leather for me. All the while I'd been cultivating sugar cane—blessed with a robust wild crop to start with—and much of this was pulped for my crude paper to be bound in hand-tooled leather. When I was fortunate enough to find some curious octopodes wandering in shallow water, I slew these as well for their ink, procured a suitable quill from one of my chickens, and now I can record my little adventure.

Had I a book to start with, it would have opened thusly:

Day 1: I find myself on an island in the middle of the ocean, with no other land as far as I may perceive.