Reacting to Some of My (Really) Old Writing

Happy Friday, guys!

Today we’re doing something a little bit different. I actually went into a bit of a cleaning frenzy these past few days, mostly to keep myself distracted from my absolutely horrendous last week and my very painful foot. Long story short: My skin got too dry, then tore open during a snow hike in the woods, and now said foot is a pus-filled, absolutely disgusting monstrosity.

Okay, maybe not anymore. When I saw how swollen it was, I decided maybe it was time to go see a doctor, who then proceeded to cut the foot open to get out all the pus. And being the idiot that I am, I thought it would be a good idea to watch, even though I get very queasy at the sight of blood… Let’s just say I will be haunted by those images for the rest of my life 😨

(And you probably are, too – Sorry! 😁)

Anyway, disgustingness aside, I happened to come across some of my old writing notebooks while decluttering, and I thought they were too good not to exploit! One that particularly caught my eye was this green booklet that I had completely forgotten about, and maybe for good reason. It’s filled with stories I wrote when I was about ten, and trust me, it shows 😅

If you’ve been following me for a while, you may know that my elementary school writing career mostly consisted of me writing badly plagiarized versions of books I loved, especially Jenny Nimmo’s Charlie Bone series. My best friend and I became absolutely obsessed with having superpowers, and spent hours upon hours playing what we very creatively dubbed “The Power Game”. I must have spent half of my childhood in my friend’s treehouse, pretending to be on the run from an evil villain called Yelda, who wanted our magical abilities for herself. And just to show you what a generous big sister I was: My best friend and I sometimes also allowed my younger siblings play with us, granting them powers like turning into frogs, while we had things like invisibility and shape-shifting. Totally fair, I’d say 😄

And being me, I wrote about it, too. Usually, the hero of my story was a girl called Amoret – yes, I blatantly stole that name from Charlie Bone, too – who was, of course, largely based on me 😇 However, I had actually completely forgotten that there were also other Amoret stories! But, as this one is about to show, that isn’t necessarily a good thing. Apparently, I could “sneak” myself into my writing without even having to resort to Amoret 😅

So yeah – now that you have some context, get ready to cringe right along with me! Here is the first chapter of Amoret, version probably about 1000 🙈🙈🙈 I even went to the trouble to painstakingly copy all of my spelling and grammar errors, so I hope you appreciate them! Though, of course, I’m also including pictures of the original so that you can see I’m not making this up… Unfortunately.

Let’s get started!!


Obviously, we must commence at the very beginning, with this first page I so lovingly taped back together:

And no, I don’t remember how this got torn… It’s strange this even happened, because I protected my writing notebooks quite ferociously!

Before we get into the story, though, can we take a moment to appreciate that footnote at the top of the page? “Used my name in story because I couldn’t think up a better one”? You might not understand this yet, but trust me, it will be cleared up once you continue reading 🙈

And now, let’s really begin. Because ten-year-old me sure needs some good roasting 😁

***

Amoret

Amoret stood in the shadows of a castle overgrown with ivy. Three years had passed since the strange gray haired lady had turned up at her parents house, went in, and came back out smiling. Three years and seven months had passed since the worst day in Amoret’s life, the day she had found her parents in the living room, dead, eyes wide with shock.

Wow, already a killer opening, I’d say. Even as a ten-year-old, I certainly knew how to use anaphora for effect! 🤣🤣🤣 Talk about drama! Although the descriptions of these dead parents are so obviously Harry Potter-inspired that I can’t believe I ever thought any of this was original content… Also, please make sure to appreciate my genitive difficulties – the apostrophes are just going to get worse from here on, I promise.

Amoret had a feeling that the gray-haired lady had something to do with her parent’s sudden death, so Amoret had fled, as fast as her legs could carry her, and had, after five weeks arrived at a cave in a hill, which was covered in trees, moss and ivy. After resting for two days she had made the cave roomy. She made a fire place, a bed of pine straw and a gate for the cave which was made from branches tied together with small vines. Amoret had also dried berries that she had found, brought a rock in the cave to use as a table and dried moss to put on wounds to stop them from bleeding.

First off, let’s appreciate the subtlety of that foreshadowing 😁 That gray-haired lady? Well, she’s going to be important, and you won’t even have to wait a chapter to find out why.

However, I do appreciate my attempts to describe this cave! I mean, the “she made the cave roomy” line is a horrible show don’t tell-travesty (and I’m not actually sure what exactly “roomy” is supposed to mean), but the rest of this isn’t as bad as I expected! Then again, I probably only included those bits because I was obsessively reading survival stories at the time and felt the need to plagiarize some more. Quite a bit of this might have been inspired by Kaya’s Escape and Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter, both of which I absolutely adored back then 😅

But let’s continue…

All went well until two days ago when Amoret had discovered the castle. Around it you had a strangely forbidding feeling and you were always cold, no matter how warm it was around it. Another strange thing about the castle was that no life stirred around here. No birds sang, no mice scuttered around and there were no rabbits nevertheless squirrls.

“There were no rabbits nevertheless squirrls”??? I think that’s all I have to say on this. Unless you want to go into the strange time representation (past tense coupled with “two days ago” doesn’t work, Naemi!) or the insane amount of its in that second sentence 😳

Still Amoret had the feeling that she was meant to come here, alougth she had no idea why. At that moment, Amoret felt much like sleeping, so she sat in a corner of the castle, her head aiganst the wall and nodded off.

What kind of idiot is this protagonist?? You find an old castle and then you suddenly feel like sleeping??? Even though you have a feeling that it’s important? What about exploring first? But I guess ten-year-old me needed to keep advancing the plot in order to give our villain her chance to enter the story:

It must have been about half an hour when Amoret woke. Sleepily, with a sheepish look on her face, Amoret looked around to see what had woken her. A fly buzzed in the distance, but that was the only sign of life. Amoret was about to nod of aigan when she heard voices from inside the castle. “… But you know she’s ought to be like her nosy parents.” It was a woman speaking. The voice was a little croaky but defenetly a woman’s. And Amoret knew another thing: She was certain she had heard that voice before.

Again, look at all these **subtle** details! I wonder where she could possibly have heard that voice before 🤔 Also, the way I consistently spell again “aigan” is absolutely atrocious. How could I ever have though that looked right? And I’m not even going to comment on the “she’s ought” 😫

Suddenly Amoret felt afraid. She had just remebered when she had heard that voice before. Three years, seven months ago, on October 12, 2003, the voice had said: “Good morning, little girl, are your parents home? We’re old friends, you know?” The voice of the gray haired lady.

NOOOO?! Really? I wasn’t expecting that at all. Or rather, I wasn’t expecting all that foreshadowing to be bulldozed over by so much explicit telling.

And another thing. Amoret was seventy seven percent sure that the lady and whoever she was talking to where talking about her.

Seventy-seven is oddly specific…

And as much as ten-year-old Naemi took pride in her spelling skills, she clearly had a lot of issues with where and were. I guess I hadn’t figured out my life hack of translating things into different languages back then. Seriously, bilingualism is a lifesaver with homophones! Learning Latin is what truly taught me the difference between German dass and das – you need dass where Latin uses Accusativus cum infinitivo constructions – and, let’s be honest, German eventually helped me figure out that the English too was something different from to. Does anyone else relate to this? Please tell me you do, or I’ll go ahead and feel even more weird now 😅

Amoret ran with all her might and when she arrived at her cave, panting, she crouched down in the darkest corner in the cave which happened to be her bed that was now also covered in deer skins. After laying under the covers for fifteen minutes, Amoret finally got up to make dinner.

Amoret’s dinner was cooked rabbit with herbs. After Amoret cleaned up after herself she decided to go to bed, but after fifteen minutes Amoret found it was impossible to go to sleep, so she decided to have another peek at the castle. At this time it was pitch black, so Amoret fought it wouldn’t hurt to go inside the castle, since noone could see her.

That’s the wrong “fought”, Naemi. I guess some of your initial th-difficulties are showing here, because unlike most native German speakers, you used to substitute an [f], not an [s], for this sound. Even though I’d have thought you would have known the difference by the time you were ten…

Also, how dumb is it to go back in the dark? What about sound? People could still hear you, Amoret!

And what is up with these fifteen-minute intervals? Let me tell you, the moment I get under my covers, I’m not getting up again until my alarm forces me to. And the covers are made of deer skin? That is so obviously stolen from Kaya.

Amoret krept around the castle trying to find an entrance, her black hair brushing against the ivy. Suddenly a black cat appeared around the corner an waved it’s tail as if it where beckoning for Amoret to follow.

This might be a good time to remind you of that footnote in the beginning and mention that when we played the Power Game, my powers were shape-shifting into any type of animal and using force fields. [Yes, I also really liked The Incredibles, which had come out about a year earlier. 😂]

The cat slincked around the corner and Amoret followed. But when she turned around the corner Amoret didn’t see a cat. She saw a girl. A girl with long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. Her eyes where dark green, brown and her skin was darkened by the sun. She wore midnight blue shorts and a shirt also midnight blue. Her arms had scars on them and on her left bare foot you could see a horrifing cut about three and a half inches long.

“Used my name in story because I couldn’t think up a better one”??? What a load of hogwash! This character you described is very clearly you, Naemi! Unless you couldn’t think of a better hair or eye color, either. Of course, my life story is not nearly as tragic as fictional Naemi’s and I don’t have any horrifying cuts on my legs (just my badly swollen foot 🙈🙈), but I’m absolutely certain you self-inserted your Power Game aspirations in here 🙄

The girl looked at Amoret and Amoret stared back. She noticed that the girls eyes looked similar to the cats’. After a long moment of silence Amoret finally asked “Who are you?”

“Shhh.” said the strange girl. “Not here, not with Yelda prowling around.” Amoret wondered who Yelda was but she decided it was better not to ask. Then Amoret told the girl, ” I know a safe place, follow me.” The girl looking uncertain followed her.

When the two girls reached Amorets cave (For that was where they where going) they sat down on Amoret’s bed and had a long conversation. Amoret told the girl her life story and the girl told Amoret her’s. Amoret was swept away by the story of the two year old Naemi who had been sitting on her parents’ bed when the gray-haired lady named Yelda had appeared, turned into a beast and had torn up her parent’s with it’s dagger like teeth, while the small child watched in horror.

I’m glad you felt the need to explain that Amoret’s cave was where they were going. I would never have gotten that on my own. Also, what a tragic backstory! I was clearly reading to many gruesome middle grade novels about destitute orphan children…

Furthermore, this dramatic ending has also brought us to the end of the first chapter, so do let me know what you think. Remember, at the time, I basically thought this was good enough to be published!

Also, there’s plenty more where this came from – I have “writing” stored away from all the way back to when I was four – so if you’d ever like to see me do another one of these posts, just let me know 😅 As cringe-worthy as some of this stuff is, I actually had quite a bit of fun dissecting it and reminiscing over all the childhood memories that came up in the process!

And if you also like to write: Do you have any childhood gems like this one? Any funny stories about something pretentious your younger self came up with? I would love to know I’m not alone here!

49 thoughts on “Reacting to Some of My (Really) Old Writing

  1. Definitely Moi says:

    🤣
    As much as I loved the originality of past Naemi’s story, I’d have to give some points to her. 10 year old me could never write anything except horribly detailed meals (And the characters seem to be eating a lot. Like, A LOT.) and birthday parties.

    Liked by 1 person

    • abookowlscorner says:

      I definitely also put my siblings’ misdeeds in some of my stories, so I can very much relate 😂 I mean, when your family members do something as unacceptable as stealing your cookies, it’s only fair to get revenge by immortalizing their terrible deeds through your writing 😎😂

      Liked by 1 person

  2. Phoenix @ Books With Wings says:

    THIS is beautiful. I love this so much. For a ten year old, you were actually quite a good writer…I mean at ten years old I was writing a story that was quite clearly a rip off of Percy Jackson…and before that there was an even more obvious Harry Potter rip off (it was literally harry potter but with twin girls instead of harry). And then when I was like eight it was a rip off of some story I don’t even remember anymore but like halfway through I got bored of writing it so I just had my characters jump to crazy conclusions to solve the mystery they were trying to solve (oh, it was so bad). I’m actually quite impressed by these writing skills, haha. Great post!

    Liked by 1 person

    • abookowlscorner says:

      Haha, thanks! I’m so happy you enjoyed this and that you can relate to having plagiarized all of your favorite children’s books in your own writing 😂 I actually read the first Percy Jackson book shortly before I turned twelve, so it fell just outside of my Amoret-phase… Otherwise I’m sure I would have heavily ripped that off, too 😁
      And honestly – a twin-girl version of Harry Potter sounds like something I’d absolutely love, even today! I’m sure it can’t have been that bad!
      And yeah, I always got bored of writing at that age too, so the ridiculous conclusions are something I definitely also did! If I even finished what I was writing at all… It took me until I was 16 to finally get through my first full-length novel without giving up somewhere midway. Mind you, it was still horrible, but it felt amazing to see that I was actually capable of following through with a project like that!
      Anyway, good luck with your own writing, and if you ever want to share any of your Percy Jackson or Harry Potter rip offs, you already have a loyal fan waiting 😉😁

      Like

  3. Noelle says:

    Aww I think your writing was actually quite good back then! I’m glad you found something to inspire you enough to write.

    It can be scary looking back at what we wrote though! I have some HP fanfiction sitting on my computer that I haven’t opened in nearly a decade. 😅 Writing in general was a great outlet for my stress, even if it wasn’t always about anything original.

    Anyway, thanks for sharing your writing with us! I loved your post. 😊

    Liked by 1 person

    • abookowlscorner says:

      Haha, thanks, Noelle! Though I do think you might be being a bit too generous towards my younger self 😂😂

      And yes, writing is a great stress outlet for me as well. Though the things I write under pressure are usually particularly mortifying and will never see the light of day if I have anything to say about it 😅 However, I am insanely curious about that Harry Potter fanfiction of yours now! 😁

      Liked by 1 person

  4. Strawberrys Corner says:

    This was beautiful! I loved it, especially the specific seventy seven percent, that was great. I don’t have my old stuff anymore, or at least I can’t find it, but I do remember one of my first stories I wrote being about the singer P!NK driving to town in a pink car which she loved because all things had to pink, she hated everything that was in any other colour. My first song I wrote was about darkness though… 😅

    Liked by 1 person

    • abookowlscorner says:

      Thanks, Meena! The seventy seven percent was also one of the parts that had me cracking up the most 😂 I guess I thought I was being original by using such a completely random number, but that’s just not how you can measure certainty!

      That P!NK story of yours sounds pretty epic, too, though 😁 Hopefully, you’ll find it again some day! And you writing songs about darkness is extremely relatable, too 😅 I have plenty of extremely dark poetry floating around, and even in my very early stories, there are usually some pretty grim deaths. So you’re not alone!

      Liked by 1 person

      • Strawberrys Corner says:

        It’s brilliant and would be cool if you could measure certainty that way! 😂

        Thank you 😂 hopefully I’ll find something one day. What is it with kids and dark things…Though I guess some of us never grow of it 😅

        Liked by 1 person

    • abookowlscorner says:

      Haha, I never got very far at that age, either 😂 But that sounds really fun – I also loved Nancy Drew in elementary school! And I’m glad I wasn’t the only one taking heavy “inspiration” from books I’d read in my writing 😁

      Liked by 1 person

  5. Line says:

    As someone who is definitely not a writer, I’ll say this seems quite good for a ten-year-old. I couldn’t have written it. When I was ten I wrote a 5-page story about a snowman and a seal becoming friends (Disney totally stole the Olaf idea from me), but it was mostly made up of drawings 😂.

    You had some odd time jumps back then, though. She sees her parents dead and she’s on the run for five weeks?!? And nothing noteworthy happens during those five weeks? I mean sure, it must have been pretty boring fighting to survive on your own 😂.

    And I totally see the inspiration from Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter. I don’t remember the story all that well, but your character being in that cave and looking for food, definitely brought back some memories.

    Liked by 2 people

    • abookowlscorner says:

      You should totally sue Disney for stealing that idea 😁 I mean, with all the money Frozen made, I’m sure they could afford giving some of it to you 😉 And trust me – my first stories also consisted of mostly drawings. My favorite of these “books” was about a family of aliens living on Mars, which consisted of about 50 versions of the same badly squiggled picture taped together 😂

      And I didn’t even think about those time jumps, but now that you’ve pointed them out, they are kind of ridiculous 😂😂 Maybe I just wanted to skip over the grieving and becoming an adept hunter part so I could actually focus on the villain of the story? (I definitely loved writing about villains back then 😅) Although the timing in this story is generally very strange, what with those fifteen minutes Amoret spends in bed and all those “ago”s…

      And I love that you also read Ronia! It’s been a while since I last read it, too, but the cave was definitely stolen from that. And I think the part about using moss to stop bleeding was, too. Ronia does that to save her horse, and I remember having been quite in awe of her medical skills back then 😂

      Liked by 1 person

      • Line says:

        I could tell you were in a rush to write about something else with those time jumps. Who needs world building or a proper character introduction anyway when there’s a villain to introduce? 😉

        And I actually think Ronia was the first proper book I ever read, although it was a mandatory thing for school. I actually almost missed it in your post because I’ve never heard the English title before. It sounds so wrong to me! 😂

        Liked by 1 person

        • abookowlscorner says:

          Haha, yes, I also think the English title sounds weird 😁 I actually had to google it for this post because I had only ever read the German version. And even though the German title is “Ronja Räubertochter”, which is literally the exact same thing, I still think the English title sounds way worse 😂 But I bet that’s probably what Swedish people have to say about all of our titles, so I guess it’s okay to be biased 😉

          Liked by 1 person

  6. Klaus Viedenz says:

    Let’s just say that NO, you’re not alone, and that there’s no way I’ll ever show another human being anything I’ve written before my HP fanfic 😀 Even if it’s the single thing that would save humanity from total extinction, even if it could stop climate change, nobody will ever see anything I wrote before the age of sixteen. Because, trust me, the world couldn’t handle it. It would traumatize generations.

    Liked by 1 person

    • abookowlscorner says:

      Hahaha, I’m glad you can relate, Abby! Although I seriously doubt those Cinderella stories of yours were worse than this – after all, Cinderella is still better than an obnoxious self-insert protagonist 😂😂😂 And let’s put it this way – you were probably just anticipating the fairy tale retelling trend we currently have in publishing 😉

      Liked by 1 person

  7. Lesserleaf says:

    Quite impressive for a ten year old 🙂
    I didn’t write stories, but I used to (and still do to be honest) think myself into my favourite stories when I couldn’t sleep at night.
    I didn’t understand German cases until I had Latin at Uni. And when I was ten, I once spelled “rough” in a spelling test as “ruff”. I still remember that because I was totally flumoxed by the spelling of that word 😀

    Liked by 1 person

    • abookowlscorner says:

      I’m glad you think so 😅 And I sometimes do that, too! Though I usually don’t imagine myself into the books but imagine myself as one of the characters… Thankfully, though, I no longer write stories about it 😂

      And yes, Latin truly helped me understand German cases as well! Unlike you, I already had to take it in sixth grade, not uni, and suddenly so many things we did in German class started to make sense. Before, when we had to identify subjects and objects that weren’t people, I was always horribly confused – our teacher always said stuff like “‘Wer oder was?’, nicht ‘wen oder was?’!”, and I didn’t see the difference when I was just asking for the “was” part 😅 But once I had Latin, those things suddenly started to make a whole lot of sense!

      And I definitely agree with ten-year-old you. The spelling of “rough” really is weird! 😁

      Like

  8. universewithinpages says:

    Haha this entire post was so hilarious! I loved hearing all of your reactions to your writing. I was the absolute same with badly plagiarized books excited I did so with the Warrior Cats series 😂 I think that your writing was definitely a lot more impressive than mine was back then haha.

    Liked by 1 person

    • abookowlscorner says:

      Thanks, Allison! I’m glad you enjoyed it and that you can relate! It’s good to know I wasn’t alone in my plagiarism attempts 😂
      And gosh, that brings back so many memories! I was absolutely obsessed with Warriors back in the day (and still really love the first two series 😊)! Though I think I read the first book when I was about twelve, so fortunately, that didn’t make it into the Amoret stories anymore…

      Like

  9. dearbookshelves says:

    So sorry about your foot! Hope it heals soon!

    Also, this reminded me of the stories I wrote as a child and they were mostly just me as the main character with pets I don’t have or competitions that didn’t exist. It was a lot lol

    Liked by 1 person

    • abookowlscorner says:

      Thanks, Sam! It already looks (and feels) a lot better now, so I’m actually very optimistic that it will be fully healed soon 😊

      And gosh, I definitely feel you there 😅 I had so many dragons, owls and other strange pets in the stories I inserted myself into! Though I don’t think I ever included competitions… But it’s good to know I’m not the only one who wrote really cringy stories starring myself as the main character 😂😂😂

      Like

  10. Pilar says:

    Please please pleeeeaaase keep doing this!!! I loved it and laughed so many times 😂😂 I actually don’t think it was that bad, and it really shows that you’ve always been a great storyteller (I’m not being sarcastic by the way, even if it sounds like it). And I completely relate to you writing yourself into the story, I did that all the time too but insisted that it wasn’t intentional 😬😅

    But really, I’m very impressed with your skills at that age!! Thanks for sharing this, it brightened up my entire week!! 😍😍🤩🤩

    Liked by 1 person

    • abookowlscorner says:

      I’m glad you got some enjoyment out of this 😂😂😂 As cringe-worthy as it was, I thought parts of it were hilarious, too, and I can’t believe I forgot this existed! I should really go through those notebooks in more detail and see what else I discover 😅

      Also, I’m so glad I’m not the only one who wrote herself into a story “completely by accident”. How I ever could have thought that footnote would be believable is beyond me 🙈😂😂

      But anyways, I’m so happy you enjoyed the post! I’ll keep your wish for more at the back of my mind 😉

      Liked by 1 person

  11. Bia Bella Baker💗Proud author of: HECCTROSSIPY book 1 The Legend of the Land says:

    When I was 15, I wrote a short story about a 3-legged squirrel who survived the apocalypse. I wish I still had the old thing, just for laughs. The squirrel woke up one morning, and saw that the sky had no sun, and was the color of blood. He didn’t realize that the air was toxic until he passed out and fell out of his tree. The next thing he knew, he was getting carried away by ravenous roaches, and held hostage in their underground lair. The story was a few thousand words, and I don’t remember what happened word for word, and how one scene lead into the next. I do you remember that the story had somewhat of a happy ending. Since it was the end of the world, and only certain insects and small animals survived, food was scarce. So the squirrel and the roaches decided to coexist. He provided them nourishment, by letting them eat his fur, and in return, they allowed him to eat their weak and injured. As a 15 year old, I thought this was so cool and so original. Ugh. I remember that the title was pretty horrible too. It was called something like, “Three-Legged Roach Food” At The time, I thought this title was catchy and witty, and also oh-so original. Double ugh. Oh, those silly, egotistical young years.

    Liked by 1 person

    • abookowlscorner says:

      🤣🤣🤣 “Three-Legged Roach Food” is just about the best title I’ve ever heard – if I saw that in a bookstore somewhere, I’d pretty much be guaranteed to pick that book up and see what it was about. Although I’m not so sure if “witty” would be the first word I’d use to describe it 😅 But that story sure has a lot of originality; I’ll give you that! Too bad you no longer have a copy…
      But thanks for this hilarious comment! It’s good to know that I’m not the only one with cringeworthy childhood projects 😁

      Liked by 1 person

      • Bia Bella Baker💗Proud author of: HECCTROSSIPY book 1 The Legend of the Land says:

        Hahaha! I meant, witty. That was dictate’s mistake that I didn’t catch, because I’m also using a voiceover. Luckily, I did catch dictate’s other mistake, before sending you the message. Instead of saying, “Oh, those silly, egotistical young years.”, it thought I said, “Oh, those silly, eagle testicle young years.” Glad you got a laugh. I don’t think I ever came across a writer before, who thought their first work was good.

        Liked by 2 people

        • abookowlscorner says:

          OMG 🤣🤣🤣 I’m so glad you told me that, because that kind of dictation failure is way to good not to appreciate!! 😂😂 And I thought I had it bad when my phone always autocorrects any math terminology I use to weirdly specific engineering terms relating to motorcars…

          Liked by 2 people

          • Bia Bella Baker💗Proud author of: HECCTROSSIPY book 1 The Legend of the Land says:

            Brilliant! That must’ve made doing math assignments a comical pain in the ass. Gotta Love that funny little horrible auto correct😇

            Liked by 2 people

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