Abbiee's Early Writings Tag | Horrendous Books I Wrote as a Child (and what I learned from them)

I am working on getting back into the swing of blogging, and I thought a tag would be a great way to help with that! As it happened, Hailey Hudson at Now All I Know is Grace tagged me in Abbiee's Early Writings Tag!

OK, first of all, Abbiee is a genius for coming up with this tag, and it is a hilarious post to read! (It also makes me feel a lot better about the terrible stories I wrote when I was younger, and I needed that. :p) In this tag, I will expose my terrible stories to the world and talk about what I learned from them. I hope you are excited, because I am about to publicly embarrass myself.

I started writing when I was quite young...probably around seven or eight years old. In my mind, my stories were the BEST BOOKS EVER, and I had the dream of being a famous author. (still hasn't happened, but we'll get there.. :p) My books were very short...mainly because 1.) I wrote all of them by hand in a notebook, and 2.) I didn't have the patience to let the story develop because I was so excited about the ending.

1. The Adventures of Robert Anderson
This book was actually the first in a series of four, and I was extremely proud of them. I changed a few details, but definitely copied a different book series that I was obsessed with at the time. However, I got very upset if any of my well-meaning siblings told me that I was copying. :p
The book is about a boy named Robert Anderson. *surprise, surprise* He was an only child, so his parents decided (very randomly) to adopt a sister for him. As a little kid, I thought the adoption process consisted of walking into an orphanage, picking a kid, signing papers, and leaving with them. (very concerning, I know) The girl they adopted was named Jessica. Later on, they end up adopting another boy, who I decided was Jessica's long-lost brother, and I wrote a very emotional and tear-jerking *cough cough* chapter about it.
The rest of the books consisted of the mother having twins, the kids finding a secret tunnel in their basement, Jessica getting lost at the zoo (based off of when that happened to me), and their cousins becoming their neighbors. It was bad. Really bad. But through the cheesy cliches of my "famous writings," I learned a few things.

- Never copy another writer's work

- Make your characters have flaws. Mine were sickeningly perfect

- The adoption process is more complicated than I thought

-Secret tunnels are not in everyone's basements

2. The Life of Jessica Marie Stewart

This story was similar to the Robert Anderson book I wrote, but from the perspective of the orphan. Jessica was adopted by an older, rich couple with no other kids at home. This was a classic example of when I made the middle of the book boring and rushed the ending, because I thought it was amazing. There is a surprise ending with the couple's son-in-law finding out that Jessica is actually his biological sister. Again, another one of my weird "emotional surprises" that I loved to put into books. :p

What I learned:

- Never rush the ending of a book

- Not everyone has a long-lost relative

-Not all rich people have maids doing everything for them

- Some books are better left in the imagination

3. Called By God

This book. This was the one that I was SURE would be published someday. I got SO mad at my sister when she told me that I misspelled a bunch of words and had bad grammar. Looking back at it, I can only laugh. It is terribly written.

The story is about a guy who grew up and decided (very last minute) that he wanted to be a missionary. He told his parents and left the next day for college. He and one other student were the only ones to make it, and (surprise surprise) they got married.
The rest of the book is basically about them going to the jungle and becoming missionaries to the people of a village there. By the end of the book, the entire village was converted. However, I didn't want it to be too cheesy, so I had the witch doctor run away and never come back. I wanted to make sure it didn't have a 100% happy ending, you know?

What I learned:

- You can't just walk into a Bible school on a whim and get a degree

- Generally, more than 2 people graduate from college

- Heartwarming stories are great, but there is a certain level of unrealistic that should be avoided

After writing those books, I started, but never finished another one. I didn't really do any writing for years after that, and in the past few years I have just gotten back into it. Hopefully my current novel will turn out better? :p

OK, so now it's time for me to tag 5 other people! I tag...

Abigail @ Ups and Downs
Grace Anne @ Totally Graced
Ellie @ A Bounce in Your Step
Hannah @ Grace in Everything
Hannah @ Ink Blots and Coffee Stains

This was a really fun (and embarrassing!) tag to do! Thank you so much for tagging me, Hailey! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! :)

Have a lovely day! ♥