What's the first thing you wrote that you still think is good? It would be great to list your age at the time of writing the piece as well. I'm interested to see how far back people go. Some people find all their old stuff to be garbage though. I think the first thing I wrote that was any good was a novella about the life of a comedian. I was 17, I believe.
Oh man, lemme think. I have a couple novellas from when I was 12-14 that I don't think are good but they are certainly entertaining, at least to me, hahah. One's a fantasy story with enchanted swords, an evil king, a talking dog and time travel in it, and the other's this romantic tragedy - I must've just read Romeo and Juliet or something. I didn't expect them to actually be so long but I just checked the wc and the fantasy one is actually of novella length, how about that? My first 'novel' was only thirteen pages and had a lot of fancy clip art stuck in it for padding, bless. I was proud of it, though. There are these three short stories from when I was 16 that I think are are pretty okay. Two of them are about fraternal bonds which is still a big thing for me and the third is about this horrible trauma and mental illness, which I'm also still writing about, so that probably explains that. Damn I'm predictable. What a fun idea for a thread! +1.
I sent a love note to a crush back in middle school, and that note helped me get a date for the school dance. Does that count?
You should be proud. Most girls in middle school would thrust a note like that into the nearest trash can. Ya did good.
I wrote something about the age of 13 called 'a stupid book for stupid people' which told of the second coming of Jesus, but in the form of a cow, who could not get people to follow him due to the limited vocabulary (moo?) and ended up being turned into a nice leather handbag, which a mugger pinched off some old dear, only to find it had magic powers and he became a superhero and saved the world. Fun times.
General: A few relatively well-structured Facebook posts about social issues. Fiction: Somnolence or maybe Solitaire. I was sixteen when I wrote the former and fifteen when I wrote the latter. I also wrote a reenactment of a scene from Majora's Mask in the last week of tenth grade, but, while it was pretty good by Fanfiction.net standards, I don't know that it holds up very well by itself. That website isn't known for its great literary quality.
Just remembered another story I wrote age 15 maybe was about a boys pet dog who flew a spaceship. The human race was in danger of being wiped out as the moon was shifting, and tidal patterns were changing, causing all kinds of issues, so the boy and his dog fly to the moon, and notice a crack in the surface, climb into it and discover the moon is actually an egg and a monster lives inside. They chat to the monster and convince it not to hatch out, and everyone lives happily ever after. Yay!
Wow. You were good when you were fifteen. Nicely done. I noticed the avatar switch as well. It's like a new hairstyle, where I hope you'll like that I noticed it.
The first and only works that I've written can be found here, in the horror workshop. Personally, I don't think they're too bad. Plenty there to improve on, of course, but I've already learnt a lot as a member of this forum. I'm working on something new at the moment, which isn't going too badly (IMHO, of course). All of these have been written as a 30 year old man.
I'm still far too young to look back, but I think I've written one thing I was quite happy about. It was written on a whim, and I didn't put much effort into it. The words just kind of wrote themselves. He woke up under the stars, for it was only when the light of others ended that his own began. And his footsteps would only roam the streets when no one else’s did. He would visit the graveyard, for it was only when everyone else was dead he could be alive. “Oh Marjorie,” he murmured to the rock, “if only you still spoke to me.” He walked the quiet road into the dusk, and over a bridge of where the water bellow asked for his lust; he stood on the edge and listened to the waves, for it was in that noise he would forever hush. (wrote it about a week ago)
I don't think I've written anything yet that I'm really satisfied with. I send them off when I'm sick of them, not when I think they're 'done'. I think maybe it's good for me to stay unsatisfied - it keeps me motivated.
I don't know. I think a few works have potential but I'm not sure I would call them good. Maybe - nice try. lol. Back when I was about 14-15 in the early 90's I'd say my first finished draft of September is probably my favorite. That's the one that was inspired by Twin Peaks. And I hope someday to rework. My other following books, with the exception of one, are basically garbage bin material. I don't think I'll ever return to them. Some of the stuff I've written lately I've enjoyed ( the Worms of Wicher-Woo, Not Pink, the beginning of Moonlight my Advantage, Big Bad Zoof, Alice's Things, Moonshot. ) Some other stuff I've felt kinda meh about. But most are first drafts and it's hard to get worked up about a first draft. I sometimes wonder if a writer can ever feel anything but momentarily satisfied with their own work.
I draw a distinction between "happy about" and "still satisfied with". I am still happy about my first attempt at a novel (from my early 40s), because some of the scenes still hold up as compelling and well-written and I still really like the characters. But if I were to consider it as a candidate for publication today, I would shudder. So, I think a lot stems from your expectations at the time. I view all of my novel attempts before now as learning experiences.
Even though it was one of my first short stories, I had already gotten a lot of mechanical practice by then from working on (now abandoned) game mods and writing angry forum posts. Thanks. The old one was a chalk drawing of my teacher, and some of my social views are potentially liberal/libertarian enough to make some people fairly angry, so I decided it wouldn't be fair to keep using it and risk having someone stumble upon my words and mistake them for his.
The idea behind my first ever short story was good IMO, but my craft was still so bad. I have considered redoing it with the skills I've gained.
I'm totally doing that with one of my projects right now. I started on it when I was twelve and decided to start overhauling it about three years ago. I think of it as rebooting :> I've thought about doing it with the oldest story I can remember but it was really ... just so terrible, honestly /shudders
12 HOLY CRAP the thing I wrote was like last year. When I was 12 I didn't know how to cross the street! Impressive!
