I’m not ready for this.

I have not looked at my old writing in years. Years. It’s just too painful. Too much cringing. Too many tears. Too much confusion and regret.

But… *sighs* I know it’s good to read one’s old writing to recognize how far one has come. So I pulled one of the many binders full of stories from my shelf and, with much caution, took a look at my stories of long ago…

Warning: If you have a weak heart or sensitive eyes (and if you are an editor) you may not want to read this. If you are a brave soul, then continue. But proceed with caution.

Okay, now that we have the disclaimers out of the way, let’s take a look at what 12(ish)-year-old me was writing like. This first story we’re going to look at is a first chapter of only the third little book I wrote that wasn’t about a family of creatures. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I finally started writing about humans.

The story will be in italics and my comments will be bold and in brackets: [like this]. Let it be noted that I didn’t change or fix anything, even though I desperately wanted to…

Chapter 1

“I love ballet!”

Joan is an 11 year old girl doing tap. She just moved into this new town. But she didn’t seem satisfied doing tap; she needed something harder and fun at the same time. [A subtle jab at tap.]

One day Joan was talking with her mom after lunch. “Mom,” she said, “I appreciate you and Dad paying for my tap but, I feel like it’s not satisfying anymore.” [Okay so no, I did not start creating new paragraphs for dialogue for at least another year. It’s okay, it hurts my eyes too.] Mom looked up from the paper she was looking at and smiled. “I thought you would say that at some point.” She said, “You don’t seem as happy doing it.”

Joan explained what she felt like she needed. [Something that wasn’t as easy-peasy as tap obviously.] Mom smiled and held up the paper she was looking at. It was about a dance school. Mom pointed to a picture. It was a ballerina on point shoes. [Would it have been so hard to add an “e” at the end of “point”???] Joan loved it and said, “That looks so fun, that’s what I want to do.” Mom knew she would be a great ballerina.

The next day Mom took Joan to the place she saw on the paper. It wasn’t very big, but it looked friendly. Mom walked up to the front desk with Joan close behind. “Hello,” said the clerk, “how can I help you?” Mom smiled at the good service. […m’kay.] “I would like to sign my daughter in for you ballet class.” The clerk brought up something on the computer and printed it. “Cool!” she said, “I just need you to fill out this paper.” Mom took the paper, smiled and walked over to some chairs by the windows. “Here Joan, you can fill it out.” She said. Joan started to fill out the paper. [So past-me typed up this three-line form and proceeded to fill it in myself by hand with a pencil.]

After she finished filling the form out she gave it to the clerk. The clerk smiled and asked her a couple more questions; “Have you ever done ballet before?” Joan was worried, because she thought if she said no, she couldn’t be in their class. “Well,” she said, “no. I haven’t. Can I still be in the ballet class?” The clerk laughed. “Yes you can.” She said. Joan was happy. [The “show don’t tell” rule is screaming at me right now]

***

Joan was excited and nervous at the same time. This was her first day of class. She didn’t know anyone, or how well she would do.

She walked in with her leotard, tights, and ballet slippers on, like everyone else was wearing.

She went to an open spot at the bar. [Okay listen, Past-Me…spell this correctly next time or people are gonna get the wrong impression. No, I did not intend for an 11-year-old character to be walking into a bar *facepalm*] “Hi,” said the teacher, “are you Joan?” Joan knew that she would like her teacher. [Wow, already?] “Yes ma’am.” She said. The teacher informed her on some things. Joan smiled.

When the teacher was choosing music, Joan heard someone talking to her. “Hi!” she said. Joan was surprised someone talked to her on the first day. “My name is Juliette.” She said, “But you can call me Julia.” Joan tried to be polite like her mom told her and introduced herself, “My name is Joan.” The music started after the teacher, Ms. Rachel, showed them the combination. Julia whispered; “We can talk after class, Joan.” Joan was glad she got a friend on the first day.

Ms. Rachel said that she did wonderful for the first time. [Might as well skip the whole class then, huh?]

That night in bed, when Mom was tucking Joan in, Mom asked; “How was your first day?” Joan got so excited she sat up straight in bed. “Oh, Mom!” she said, “It was great. I made a new friend already.” Mom smiled. “What’s your friend’s name?” she asked. Joan answer, “Her name is Juliette, but she said I can call her Julia. She’s the nicest friend I ever had.” [R.I.P. Joan’s old friends] Then she added, “I love ballet!”

Have you had enough? No? Okay, here’s another story snippet. 😉 

This one’s titled Kora and the New Family. Intriguing, I know.

Chapter 1

The New Neighbors

+~+~+~+

[Yes, I did this little combination for an embellishment on each chapter heading]

Kora Arnold is a curious 13-year-old-girl. She lives on a horse ranch [like most of my protagonists] with her mom, dad, and her 10-year-old brother, Joseph.

   Kora, being curious, [Yes, we’ve established that] wanted to know all about a family that moved into the neighboring farm. She had a habit of spying, [a.k.a. trespassing] so her parents told her not to trespass. [See?] So Kora decided that she would find out about them when they brought over cookies, like they usually did with new neighbors.

   Kora [LOVE how I started yet a third paragraph with her name] helped her mom make sugar cookies, cupcakes, and a welcome card. They put the treats on a plate and wrapped it with placstic [Yes, that’s how I spelled it.] wrap.

   They walked to the new neighbors house and rang the doorbell. “Hello,” said a lady, who looked like the mother of the house. [I thought that was funny, but I’m not sure why.] “Hello,” replied Kora’s mom. “We heard you moved in, and we wanted to bring you some goodies.” They soon learned that the lady’s name was Gabby Baker. The Arnolds introduced themselves as the were led into the living room.

   They were talking for some time when three children came running down the stairs, two girls, who looked like twins, and a little boy. “Oh, these are my children, the twins, Joanna and Haley, and my youngest, Daniel,” Mrs. Baker introduced her kids. “It looks like Joanna and Haley are about your age Kora,” Kora’s mom said to her. Kora told Mrs. Baker her age, and it turned out Joanna and Haley were the same age as her. She smiled at the two girls, they smiled back. Kora knew she would like them. [So soon?] Joanna had long black hair and blue eyes, Hailey had shorter brown hair, with green eyes. Kora and Haley smiled at eachother when they discovered they had the same eye color. [I, too, smile at every brown-eyed person that I meet.]

[Also, you don’t need to know what Daniel looked like. He’s not important.]

   After talking for a few more minutes,  they headed home from their visit with the Bakers. “I think I’m going to like the Bakers,” Kora said on their way home. “Me too,” Joseph added. ‘I’ll like playing with Daniel.” Her parents agreed they were a very nice family. Kora couldn’t wait to get to know Joanna and Haley better. [Especially Haley. Ya know, because you two have the same eye color. Practically a recipe for best-friendship.]

Aaalright, I think that’s enough humiliation for one day. I gotta admit though, it was fun looking back on these stories, and making this post was fun too. I may do a part two (because there’s more where that came from). 😉 

A little backstory…

I remember enjoying writing Joan’s story, because in those days I was still in ballet and had a dream of getting to use pointE shoes. I remember imagining my old studio as I wrote about Joan.

Kora was one of those trespassing adventurous red-heads. Of course she had a horse, which definitely made an appearance later on in the book. I remember wanting to make Joanna and Haley polar opposites. Which resulted in Haley being a bubbly, happy soul and Joanna being this quiet, solemn kinda creepy? person.

Oh, in case you didn’t notice, there was no conflict whatsoever in my early stories. So…yeah. I hope you enjoyed it. 🙂

Also this week, I will be answering all your blogging questions! Partly as a continued celebration of my 2-year blogiversary and as part two to my “I answer all your questions about ___” series. So ask anything and everything about blogging in the comments and stay tuned for Thursday’s post. 🙂

What are your blogging questions?