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Tiny Writer
Apr. 28th, 2009 11:09 pmHad a manic moment today and dragged the trundle frame out from under my bed to vacuum out some of the larger, meaner dustbunnies. I use my trundle frame mostly as a storage space for old writing projects dating back to around 1991, which for those of you keeping score at home would be the kindergarten ones.
This was all part of the plan. Included in that mire of half-finished scenes and sentence fragments is a box of 3¼" floppy discs containing some of my writing from a later period, known as my “Could Spell But Couldn’t Write” period, from when I just staggered into the double-digit age set till about halfway through high school. And also included with this box is my beloved old CD-ROM for Creative Writer 2.
I adore that program. I spent that entire period of writing on Creative Writer and Creative Writer 2.* It had sound effects and background schemes like Deep Space and The Ocean, and you could make words sparkle or do silly sound effects, and you could do drop caps. (I loved drop caps.) And there was some freakish blue bald character who was supposed to manifest the spirit of creativity, and who, in my opinion, is scads better than that accursed paperclip.
The only bug of these programs—and some misguided souls would argue that this is actually a feature—is that they didn’t actually come with the stories prewritten for you. I had to write them myself, and I saved them all and backed them up after a few unfortunate incidents in which they died horrible deaths. And now I have all these stories that need to be re-saved while I still have an old computer that actually uses floppies.
The thing is, some of this stuff is saved only for me and my own nostalgia, because contrary to what my teachers and I myself always insisted, my writing stunk. Oh, it was good for its author’s developmental period at the time, but it was still, quite frankly, practice writing, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kittikattie once voiced the same opinion I have of practice writing and practice crafts: unless you’re looking for pointers or criticism, you do not show it to the world. My practice writing included stories about my dolls, Fantasy Epics, random absurdist mystery stories, veritable stacks of Super Mario and Star Wars fanfiction,** and outright plagiarism. You don't want to see it.
But there were a few gems in there, too, and so if I find a few that I like, I may share them with you. I have promisedgondolinchick01 that I will show her the story that won some sort of district award in sixth grade ("Sir Dave and the Dragon"), on condition that she show me the one she wrote that won something or other. And while I suffer no illusions about my free verse poetry, and never have,*** I may inflict some of the more fun poems I came up with on you.
This is what you guys get when I dive under the bed. Pray I don’t go for the closet next.
*The previous period, “Was Just Starting To Form Abstract Conceptualizations,” was done on KidWorks, which had features like an art studio that rivaled Microsoft Paint, little icons that would replace common nouns and verbs, and my favorite feature of all: a voice-aloud option that would read your story to you if you clicked it. I derived hours of entertainment from listening to monotonal recitations of my one-page stories from that guy.
**I think fanfiction, no matter how stupid the fandom, is a very useful device for practice writing, because you can start with an established storyline and characters. It’s like Fisher Price’s My First Story.
***I found a “poetry portfolio” I did as an assignment in 9th grade, and in my self evaluation I stated outright that my free verse poetry sucked, but I enjoyed doing limericks and parodies.
This was all part of the plan. Included in that mire of half-finished scenes and sentence fragments is a box of 3¼" floppy discs containing some of my writing from a later period, known as my “Could Spell But Couldn’t Write” period, from when I just staggered into the double-digit age set till about halfway through high school. And also included with this box is my beloved old CD-ROM for Creative Writer 2.
I adore that program. I spent that entire period of writing on Creative Writer and Creative Writer 2.* It had sound effects and background schemes like Deep Space and The Ocean, and you could make words sparkle or do silly sound effects, and you could do drop caps. (I loved drop caps.) And there was some freakish blue bald character who was supposed to manifest the spirit of creativity, and who, in my opinion, is scads better than that accursed paperclip.
The only bug of these programs—and some misguided souls would argue that this is actually a feature—is that they didn’t actually come with the stories prewritten for you. I had to write them myself, and I saved them all and backed them up after a few unfortunate incidents in which they died horrible deaths. And now I have all these stories that need to be re-saved while I still have an old computer that actually uses floppies.
The thing is, some of this stuff is saved only for me and my own nostalgia, because contrary to what my teachers and I myself always insisted, my writing stunk. Oh, it was good for its author’s developmental period at the time, but it was still, quite frankly, practice writing, and
kittikattie once voiced the same opinion I have of practice writing and practice crafts: unless you’re looking for pointers or criticism, you do not show it to the world. My practice writing included stories about my dolls, Fantasy Epics, random absurdist mystery stories, veritable stacks of Super Mario and Star Wars fanfiction,** and outright plagiarism. You don't want to see it.But there were a few gems in there, too, and so if I find a few that I like, I may share them with you. I have promised
gondolinchick01 that I will show her the story that won some sort of district award in sixth grade ("Sir Dave and the Dragon"), on condition that she show me the one she wrote that won something or other. And while I suffer no illusions about my free verse poetry, and never have,*** I may inflict some of the more fun poems I came up with on you.This is what you guys get when I dive under the bed. Pray I don’t go for the closet next.
*The previous period, “Was Just Starting To Form Abstract Conceptualizations,” was done on KidWorks, which had features like an art studio that rivaled Microsoft Paint, little icons that would replace common nouns and verbs, and my favorite feature of all: a voice-aloud option that would read your story to you if you clicked it. I derived hours of entertainment from listening to monotonal recitations of my one-page stories from that guy.
**I think fanfiction, no matter how stupid the fandom, is a very useful device for practice writing, because you can start with an established storyline and characters. It’s like Fisher Price’s My First Story.
***I found a “poetry portfolio” I did as an assignment in 9th grade, and in my self evaluation I stated outright that my free verse poetry sucked, but I enjoyed doing limericks and parodies.
