A good friend of mine recently sent me a short story she wrote in ninth grade for an assignment, because she thought I'd be entertained. It was a story about a baker (specifically the best baker in the world) being kidnapped by aliens in order to make special muffins for them to fatten them up because the aliens' beauty standards were girth rather than being skinny like ours. It was absolutely delightful and weird and hilarious in all the best ways, especially knowing my friend now and seeing a glimpse into her brain as a fourteen year old.
And since I've always loved
going through my old childhood writing and sharing it, I thought that's what I'd do today. It's always fun going back and laughing at myself, in addition to seeing how far I've come. And as a bonus, I've included some pictures of myself as a wee pre-teen writer (against my better judgment) so enjoy.
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| Some things never change... I still write with a laptop and cats. |
Grade 8, Winter John and the Seven Doors
“Who said that?” I asked.
“It is us,” the voice answered.
“Who is ‘us’ exactly?” I questioned.
“Us… ahem, we are the seven doors, and
are here to protect you,” the voice rang throughout the room.
I figured that they were supposed to protect
me from my raging stepfather, so I didn’t ask. Still, I was wondering one
thing.
“Excuse me, um, doors?” I said, feeling
extremely stupid.
“We listen,” the seven doors answered in
unison.
“I’m sure when I crawled into this
room,” I paused and took a giant sip of soup, scalding my tongue in the
process, “that it was full of comfortable furniture, but when I woke up I was
in this room, with all hard wooden furniture. Was it just me or something
else?”
“You’re a smart
one, yet we have seen more than any mortal eyes. Our rooms never stay the same.
Not one exists for longer than a day. I actually thought I got what they were
saying. (I must have been going crazy).
I know I'm SO CLEVER, right? I'm being totally original if I just switch the characters out of the original Snow White story. I like the voice in this one, but the plotting is kind of lacking (which, incidentally, I am still not very good at plotting).
Grade 8
I think this excerpt might be too embarrassing to share. Be warned.
I was kneeling on the ground, flipping through pages of
an old journal I had found in the attic. I stopped at a random page and read
it. The date was marked April 5th, 2007. That was thirty-two years ago.
"It's not like it is in books. It really
isn't. There isn't just one cool girl and their posse, and one cool guy and
their posse. There are groups of cool people. But you have to make sure that
you aren't confusing the not-cool people who follow trends with the actual cool
people. And after that, there’s the not-cool people who don’t follow trends at
all. I’m not really sure how this all works out, but it does. I know all the
styles, too.
September
Styles 2007
Jeans
Ugg/Emu
Boots
Skater
shoes
Zip-up
sweaters with one drawing multiplied to make a pattern.
Tank tops with the lacy bottom but
underneath everything.
Bangs
clipped straight back
I
could write more, but I won’t."
I
stopped reading. What was this? A journal, obviously but the simple entry had
uncovered multiple questions from the dirt of my mind. What was a ‘book’ back
in 2007? Now, a book was a long list of typed pages on the computer that you
could read yourself or have an automatic voice read aloud to you. But what was
it like in books, if not how this person suggested? And the not-cool people and
the cool-people and the trend-followers- what were those?
Oh dear, I was such a pretentious fourteen year old. Also, as you can tell, I was VERY on top of all the 2007 trends (ha).
Grade 7, All the Neopets Fanfiction
You may not know this, but when I was a kid I was obsessed with Neopets. Some kids got deep into Harry Potter fandom. I got deep into Neopets, to the point that I learned HTML... and wrote first-person little bios of each of my Neopets.
Ugh. My brothers and sister are such BABIES!!!! Well, okay,
not really. Marmoke is just really shy, paranoid and scared of everywhere and
everything. Why should I tell you about HIM? I just got painted from yellow to
blue. Why couldn't I have gotten painted from yellow to ELECTRIC??? Marmoke is
a scaredy-yurble, as I am an Adventrurer!!!! My favorite place to be is Mystery
Island. I love all the excitement that goes on there. I also like Krawk Island.
Even though I'm outgoing, I still hate The Haunted Woods. What kind of neopet
would be daring enough to enter THAT forest? HA! Not me, thats for sure. I love
wrestling. I also used to play with 17abchak2. He was the BEST!! And then he
was put up for adoption, and I haven't seen him since. I wish I was green.
Yeah, I don't know what half those words mean either. Also, the things I have found in my "Neopets Nostalgia" folder... wow. There's an entire folder of screenshots of things on Neopets making fun of new users for using "chatspeak" as I called it?? Why, fourteen year old Alyssa, why??
And a bonus excerpt from one of my many "Neopets Stories":
In
the depths of Maraqua lies the only
creature dare swim among the corals of the darkest waters.
The
Maraquan Krawk.
But
there is only one of these marvels slithering among the kelp. His name is Newt.
Newt
had always wanted to make his way further to the sunlight of the surface, but
he was scared, and something always kept him from wandering past his little
cave of a home.
“Todays your day, the adventure will overpower
your frightened soul,” whispered the kelp. Down in the depths of the Neopian sea,
kelp could be real talking neopets. Newt didn’t feel like listening to weeds
today, so he stayed in his little sea volcano, away from all the other life.
Yep, some days I don't feel like listening to the weeds either.
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| I haven't really changed much at all, have I? |
Grade 6, Words
This was apparently a writing exercise, since I had five words at the top that I'm guessing I was supposed to incorporate into the excerpt. Um... just read it.
I’d never expect anything so… meaningful from my workaholic dad. Maybe,
there was something that wasn’t there when my dad worked. It could be like a
coat of paint that could seem realistic, but peeled off to reveal his true
self. As my kite soared, I remembered the humiliation of my mom calling after
me not to forget my lunch. Dad never did that, but then again, Mom did that
because she cared. I dug hard in my memory to reach something where my dad
showed that he did really, truly care. I came up empty. Maybe there was
something, I just didn’t dig deep enough. To this day, I am still digging, and
finally, I’m starting to dig up diamonds.
That is the story of my young daughter,
Joliet. She always liked attention. Yet, her mother always praised for
everything, really anything she did. “Oh, that’s wonderful, dear,” her mother
would say. And, of course, as all mothers do, she would humiliate Joliet with
little reminders that weren’t worth mentioning. And I, unfortunately, only had
time- or patience to praise Joliet when she did the hardest of her work. I wish
I could’ve noticed other things. And that day, when we were flying her kite
together, I realized how great she really was, and I’d never know anyone else
quite like I knew her. After all, She’s my daughter.
Funnily enough, my dad is not and has never been a workaholic. I have no idea where this came from.
Actually, I do. It's from reading. It's interesting how much of my old writing was pretty much solely inspired by my crazy imagination/desire for escapism or books I'd read. My childhood writing constantly seems way too close to other famous works (see above). Now that I've lived life a bit, I can write more about my own experiences and let that inform me. It really is true what they say: in order to write, you have to get out and live. And, hopefully with that added life experience to my writing, I will be less embarrassed about my past work in the future. ;)
Further reading:
Even More Embarrassing Childhood Writing // More of My Embarrassing Childhood Writing // Early Works Blogfest: My Awesome Childhood in Writing
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