Monday, August 14, 2017

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...

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! ♥

22 comments:

  1. This was a very cool! And fun! All the posts about Early Writings have been so much fun to read :D I did it too actually :D

    lisa
    thisinkwell.blogspot.com

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    1. Oh, nice!! I think I did read your post! Thank you, Lisa! ♥

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  2. Mis spelled works will make a great book hard to read. BUT This tag is neat! I am seeing lots of people do it and I enjoy reading them. I wrote about zero finsished books as a child

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    1. YES. haha finishing books was SO hard for me!! Thank you! ♥

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  3. I love this tag :) So glad to see you do it. And boy do I relate over getting angry at siblings' critiques. xD It was hard to accept at the time, but I can laugh about it today...

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    1. YES, haha. And to think, we ASK for criticism now!! lol ♥

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  4. My goodness!!! I remember all of those!!! Such good memories. I had a book, "Peter's Struggle" and "Peter's Hiking Trip." Do you remember them??? Same exact instance. I thought they were wonderful. HAHA! Now I think they were awful. ~Abby <3<3<3

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    1. YES THE PETER BOOKS SO MUCH EPICNESS!!! lol good memories. ♥

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  5. THE WITCH DOCTOR. I'm dying... too funny. Thanks for doing the tag!!

    Hailey
    www.haileyhudson.wordpress.com

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    1. RIGHT?! haha that's one of my favorites to read. lol ♥

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  6. Hahahaha I love this! Also...how does the couple's son-in-law find out that Jessica is his biological sister if they didn't have kids?????

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    1. I have no idea!! Lol When you're a little kid and you don't think through your characters history well enough. haha ♥

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  7. Eep, I love this tag! I'll definitely have to dig through my old writing XD

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    1. It's always so embarrassing but so funny!! haha ♥

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  8. I love this tag so much! Thank you for tagging me! <3

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  9. YOU ARE HILARIOUS. Oh my goodness. A couple of moments that had me holding in laughter:

    "Secret tunnels are not in everyone's basements"

    "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?"

    "Generally, more than 2 people graduate from college"

    Life-changing lessons, for sure. :) I'm so glad I found your blog!! Looking forward to following along with you!

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    1. Hahahaha I had quite the imagination as a kid!! I'm so glad you enjoyed it! ♥

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  10. HAHAHA I LOVED READING THIS SO MUCH OMG THANK YOU FOR DOING IT!!!! *HUGS* what is it with orphan stories?? I WAS SO ATTRACTED TO WRITING ORPHAN STORIES WHEN I WAS LITTLE OMG. O_o also I laughed out loud at this: "Generally, more than 2 people graduate from college" xD ALL THE THINGS YOU LEARNED ARE JUST = SPOT ON. I LOVE THIS POST. SO MUCH.

    rock on,
    abbiee

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    1. Yay!! Orphans must make the best characters, idk. Hahaha
      THANK YOU SO MUCH, LOVE.♥♥

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  11. Wait, what?? You don't have tunnels in your basements?

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