Digging Up My Old Writing

When was the last time you read your old writing? 

We often shove our first few writing projects in a drawer, never to see the daylight for at least a decade. Those stories are usually filled with ridiculous characters, comical situations, questionable dialogue, and insane descriptions. They are probably not very fun to read, but they are so important to writers. Without those first stories, you wouldn’t be where you are today.

This week, I decided to dig up my first stories, determined to see what I can learn from them. (and also laugh at my questionable writing decisions)

#1: Aurora Goes to School 

 When I was little I wrote a Disney princess fanfic featuring Aurora as she navigated fancy princess school. I didn’t actually write out this story. Instead, I had many pages of drawings accompanied by a few paragraphs of context, so a good chunk of this is open to interpretation. As the story goes on, Aurora meets Bell The Bully and makes friends with Merida and Tiana.

Then my little mind took a turn, and Bell the Bully died from cancer. 

I have no recollection of writing such a tragedy, but here we are *shrugs* I also didn’t realize how bad my spelling skills were until rereading this. (I promise I can spell now)

I didn’t learn any specific writing craft skills while writing this, but I did learn what it’s like to put a story on paper. It helped lay a foundation for future stories.

#2: The Adventures of Joy Fitzgerald 

This was the first official “book” I wrote, which resides in a torn up red notebook. I envisioned self publishing this, and this story is really what kicked off my writing aspirations. While writing it, I started looking into self publishing and really thought of myself as a future author. This story is near and dear to my heart, at least until I read it. 

Joy had never seen neon brown before.

“Take this Transportation sugar.” Celcia said hurriedly, handing them sugar that was glowing blue, “Now hold it, and say Yanksmith.” 

 “The Giant Mith Moths of Donar have decided to serve Lord Gargenbush.” Everyone weeped after hearing this.

The Adventures of Joy Fitzgerald is what you would get if you replaced the wizardly things in Harry Potter with forest fairies and a villain named Gargenbush, complete with evil grasshoppers and McGonnogal style fairy teachers. This “book” was also only barely 2,000 words, but hey, this was a big turning point because I realized publishing (especially self publishing) was something a young writer could do.

#3: The Legend of the Amethyst Ring 

 I decided to try to write a creepy story once. I took inspiration from an amethyst rock I had in my room, and wrote about a cursed ring that killed everyone it touched. I actually like the general concept of this story, and plan on returning to it in future projects.

That house belongs to old Mr. Cardigan.

They hated her as much as they hated walking on a prickly pear cactus.

The cook, Bathilda, was scurrying around like a house rat.

Yes. I named someone Mr. Cardigan.

Upon rereading this I feel like it could turn into a Lord of the Rings spinoff. I also remember thinking I was very clever with the names for my characters. (ha!) This was the first story I outlined, albeit very brief. While I wrote this story, I learned more about the writing process and finding a routine that works for me.

#4: The Bendors

When I was little, I played a game with some friends where we all had “powers.” One friend had water powers, another fire, earth, ice, and wind powers. My friend decided to call the game “Bendors” This game became very dramatic, and over a summer, I wrote it into story form. 

“You should go and yell at the sea, then jump on it.”

…as soon as Queen Earthiana Animalia Soil died.

“Oh yea, um bye Brian, and good job.” 

Well, five years later, I realized that game was based on the TV show, Avatar: The Last Airbender. So, in a way, I was unintentionally writing fanfiction? 

I tried to juggle about seven main characters in this entire story. It was chaotic, confusing, (I’m pretty sure at one point I had eight characters and fourteen magic islands) but I learned a lot about character development and worldbuilding during the writing of this story. 

#5: In the Town of Manygrain. 

This was based on a Minecraft town. It was my first attempt at making character arcs, which failed, but was a great learning experience!

 …look around for Puppers, mother’s pet chicken. 

Back home, making a dress took a long time. First, Mother would weave the cloth for the dress. Then she’d cut it, and then sew it together. The process took at least a few days.

(after sewing some dresses, I can confirm the process takes *a little more* than a few days. I’m very confused about why I thought this was a legit time frame.)

This was also an attempt to imitate the classic 1st person present tense POV that is in nearly every YA dystopian book. After rereading this, I wouldn’t be opposed to returning to this story. The basic concept is about people living deeply isolated in the desert, and then having an opportunity to experience the new things of the world. Without all of the very angsty YA tropes, it could be fun to write!

This was the first story I worked on consistently, not with sporadic bursts of motivation like in the past. I learned a lot about pushing through and writing regularly, which was a huge milestone in my writing adventures.

#6: Lita (otherwise known as my NaNoWriMo project) 

A little after I wrote In the Town of Manygrain, I wrote an untitled story for NanoWriMo. For the sake of calling it something (because I really have too many untitled stories) I named this story Lita, which is the protagonist’s name. This story is 50,000 words of pure chaos. I had an outline when I was writing it, but I got so bored that I decided to throw in a typical YA romance subplot. Then, I added a pirate conflict because I wanted to write something Pirates of the Caribbean-y. 

I honestly have no desire to fix up this project. There are certain aspects that I could take out, but a lot of it is really muddled fantasy stuff that I don’t want to mess with. That being said, this story has some really fun quotes: 

“ ‘Ello dearie, did you come to buy the mice newspaper?” 

“I’ll do that, but keep in mind I only get one bowl of water a day.” 

You are going to learn something after writing 50,000 words in thirty days. I learned how to procrastinate, and then push through and catch up on word counts. I learned how to balance writing time with family time, too. I’ve used all of this knowledge even today. 

So, tell me, what are some great lines from your early stories? What did you learn from those stories? Thanks for reading, have a great rest of your day! 

Hannah

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