Reacting to my old…writing // aka embarrassment time! (TATMIAU pt. 1)

Hey there wonderful people and welcome back!! Today, I’m going to be reacting to my old writing from some years back that I wrote when I was around 10/11 years old.

This will be fun.

And by fun, I mean I’m going to die of embarrassment.

Before we get started, a big shout-out to Ash @ Starlight Strands for pretty much making me decide to do this! (Go check her out!! Her blog is gorgeous, her posts are amazing and hilarious, and I assure you that you will not be disappointed!!) I’d been thinking about writing a “reacting to my old…” series, and then I saw her post where she reacted to her past writing, so I decided to go ahead and just do it too.

And now, without further ado, let’s get started!

Just for some background, I always loved telling stories and writing. For as long as I can remember, I was telling my sisters stories, my childhood friends, anybody who would listen to whatever story I had conjured up on the spot.

It was hilarious sometimes, and just plain weird at others. It was almost tradition, with me washing dishes, and my sisters hanging around the kitchen to hear my latest tale. It was also never the same story, because my overactive imagination couldn’t let me stick to one story for long.

Anyways, I eventually started writing some of my stories down, and I thought I was a genius. THE next writing prodigy. The next amazing child author.

Obviously, I never got published, I am NOT a prodigy, and I’m not that much of a genius either.

Every few months, I open my Google Docs (I like to call it the graveyard of stories lol, because stories go there to die) and cringe my way through past stories that I’d come up with, dying at the thought of myself sharing this with family and friends.

And now, I’m going to share these stories with you, because I do like to embarrass myself, and I think it’ll be slightly fun to critique myself, especially with the knowledge that I have today.

This story that I’ll be sharing, is one of three “novels” that I’ve ever completed. It’s actually only long enough for a short story, so sorry 10-year-old me. You didn’t actually finish a novel.

(I will probably be incredibly salty and critical of myself, but it’s all in fun!)

So, here are Le Stats:

36 pages is a record for me. I’ve never stuck to a story, and finished it except twice, and this is double the length of one of the other story that I did finish, so good job Past Me.

As you can see, only 7793 words, so it’s definitely not a novella and more of a short story. I’m guessing that all these pages are just blank space or something lol.

For today, we’ll go through the first 2 pages and that will hopefully result in about 15 installments of this series. I have little dividers in the story that split each chapter into 2 sets of about 2 pages, so we’ll stop around there for each one.

The title is Tessa and the Murder in Avon, Utah. This was probably me attempting a Nancy Drew style of murder mystery, and we’ll see how I fail so utterly miserably.

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page 1 first half

• Just from looking at this, you can see that my love of exclamation marks stretches all the way back to my little kid days…which is not good in a story

• She sang momentarily?? What does that mean? I feel like what I meant was that she all of a sudden remembered and sang that at the moment

• Horror filling trip…as the train moves slowly down the mountain

• The number of exclamation marks in the dialogue lol. It kind of makes me imagine them as two Dora’s squabbling…

• Those last two sentences are not the best, but oh well.

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page 1 second half

• The wonderful exclamations continue. And because I’m generous, I’ll let the spelling/grammar mistakes slide.

• The whole thing with internet and messages is so implausible, Younger Me, because there is something called…data. I know. Magical.

• Carrying a huge bag and staying to oneself doesn’t make someone odd. And I don’t think it’s particularly plausible either for him to somehow dictate whether or not someone can sit across or beside him. And well, he’s talking to the conductor, so him “not talking to anyone” is kind of wrong too. (I’m just being picky lol)

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page 2 1st half

• There is only ONE exclamation in this section !! Finally!!

• Punctuation issues…

• How do you stare hard at someone? Intently, yes, but hard?

• Ok, I missed that first exclamation. That whole second paragraph is kind of weird and could definitely be written better.

• Poor Teresa lol. She honestly seems like the mature grown-up person while Tessa is the little kid. Yet they are both supposed to be about the same age. (and how dare she drop her book like that??)

• Why would the train come to a sudden stop like that?

• In my mind, it seems like she’s only taken a few steps, so either that’s a very short train car, or Younger Me is kind of skipping around and leaving the little important details.

• How perfect for her to fall on the odd man’s bag. Just perfect.

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page 2 2nd half

• That must have been quite the push for her to fly across an aisle and smack the lady hard enough in the stomach for her to throw up.

• It’s also technically impossible because Tessa should have flown into the window or wall, not into a seat, since it is “across the aisle”. Unless the push was this awesome move that made her curve as she flew.

• I feel like no one would scream and instead they’d whip out cell phones to record this viral moment. But what do I know?

• Okay. So the guy runs off with or without the bag?? Because if he ran off with the bag, and if what Younger Me suggested to the reader when Tessa fell on the bag is true, then there should be a living thing inside that bag, which I would assume is rather big and heavy since we’ve been told several times that it was a large and odd black bag. And in that case, I think it would take quite the maneuvering for him to somehow carry that bag off the train, especially when he’s panicking and rushing.

• Hypothetically, he should be slow, and fumbly, and possibly fall in his attempt, which should buy our awesome and intuitive heroine (yeah right) some time to get up and tackle him, despite the throw up (which we already said is technically wrong), and either stop the young man altogether or at least manage to keep the bag.

• But the story would end on the second page if that happened, so of course, it didn’t.

• And considering that Tessa didn’t see or mention the bag within the next few paragraphs, I’m guessing that he did take the bag, and so all of what I said above is still true.

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• “Tessa was rushed to the bathroom” Lol, idk, this sentence just makes me laugh. Was she rushed by the air? Wind? Carpet? Teresa? Whhhoo???

• The way that last sentence ended is really really really painful to read.

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page 3 1st third

• I’m dying. This whole exchange has me dying 😂😂😂 It’s so staged and weird and just LOL

• And again, also kind of incorrect for the conductor to say that because one would expect him to be groveling at Madam’s feet offering her a refund and what not since she had such a terrible experience with her ride. But again, what do I know?

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I wasn’t the best writer at all as a kid. I had a lot of inconsistencies that made the writing super childish, but you can’t really blame me for not knowing some of these things (such as the data) at the time. I also skipped around a bunch leaving important details, and I didn’t clearly describe the setting or the character’s actions. Of course, the situation with Tessa falling on the bag and everything that happened after that is also very implausible, and I obviously did not think it through.

This could definitely use a lot of improvement, but I’m still kind of proud of myself for having a vision, even if my execution wasn’t the best.

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There you have it guys! This is my analysis of the first 3 pages and a third of this book that I wrote. Honestly, this was hilarious, but also cringy (like really really really cringy) and also embarrassing, and I think it’s just going to get worse from here.

But let’s be optimistic. I may have used some of my “writing genius” in the next few chapters. At the very least, I hope this was entertaining for you guys to read.

So, what did you guys think? Did you write stories as a kid? Am I the only one who creates stories similar to the most recent book or show I’ve read/watched? Do you think my analysis was fair or was I just being unfairly picky & salty? Is there anything that you noticed? Chat with me in the comments below!!