So a few weeks ago Ken decided he wanted to make the spare bedroom into his den. This meant that we spent a Saturday sorting through and throwing away junk. Quite cathartic. I found two things buried in the closet: my fake ID from college and two folders full of my old writing. Finding the ID was fun. It's so horribly bad that I can't believe it ever worked anywhere. It's also a nice reminder that at one point I actually was too young to buy liquor. As for the writing ... oh, man. Some of it's pretty wretched ... but some of it's not so bad. There's essays as well as fiction dating back to high school. There are at least two stories missing; one written in the sixth grade about a man and a woman on a space ship that watch the destruction of Earth from space and one written my freshman year of high school about a sociopathic teenager that kills girls who have the nerve to date her ex-boyfriend.
I've decided to take a page out of Lyda Morehouse's book (she's a member of the Wyrdsmiths writing group--yeah, the same Wyrdsmiths that's on the blog roll over on the left) and throw up a few excerpts now and again. My first selection is dated January 13, 1993 and is the opening paragraph to a story called "Another one for the Scrapbook."
He was having those feelings again. It took him by surprise, really. He usually didn't have these feelings until Springtime. He had often compared these feelings to the "I-have-the-munchies-but-I-don't-know-what-I-want-to-eat" feeling. You know, you know you want to eat, but not what. He knew he wanted to kill, but not who. Not yet.
Okay, terrible, right? But not. The writing suuuucks, but the elements are there. I have the warm fuzzies.
4 comments:
Hey, it's kind of cool. Certainly no worse than anything I posted. :-)
Thanks! :) Ah, youth.
You know, maybe I was clueless, but I really had NO IDEA you aspired to be a writer back when I worked with you. I vaguely ...MAYBE... remember a passing comment or two...
To hear about your story ideas from high school makes me happy. I'm glad you are a real writer now. I think you have always "belonged" with that crowd. Frankly, I'm jealous (of the belonging part)...but in a good way! :)
K8: I'm not surprised you didn't know about the writer aspirations. I kept them pretty quiet. In fact, I still do. It's strange: those in writer circles know what a big deal a short story sale or getting a partial manuscript request from an agent is, but friends and co-workers typically don't have a clue. They're usually either "why don't you have a book out yet" or "what makes you think you can write a book?" It's not that they're unsupportive; they just don't have any concept of the process.
It feels good to "belong" somewhere. Embracing my inner geek helped, as did ceasing to care what other people think of me.
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