Best (or Worst) of: Childhood Creative Writing Efforts

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I wrote a story about going trick-or-treating with my friend and passing by the spooky old Jenkins mansion, where we found a strange metal object with a low moaning sound coming from it, but were scared off by a 144 foot tall duck and a 12 foot tall snail. (I was very proud of the math involved, making sure that 1 inch translated to 12 feet) We ran home and just by chance saw a news report on a downed space capsule that was to be avoided due to radioactivity and a hotline number to call for a cure for radiation poisoning.
(Radiation makes thing grow really big, right? Hence the duck)

I got a good grade, the reason cited being that it had a beginning, a middle, and an end.

I also wrote a story that involved descending into ancient caverns with crumbling stone stairways and deep, still pools that had never before been seen by man. I remember it being a fantastic story, but I imagine it’s improved by the fact that I can’t find it to see how godawful it really was.

22

I made a birthday card for my sister, who is 6 years my senior. Forgot all about it until she discovered it among some old papers. On the front I drew cherries, apples, strawberries, pineapple, watermelon, etc. On the inside…get ready for cleverness!..the inscription was “You’re sweeter than fruit!”

23

I know this one!

How nice it is to wade in mud
All squishy-squash between the toes
I’d rather wade in wiggly mud
Than smell a yellow rose

This was in a book of poetry that we had when I was little. We still have a tape of my mom reading it. I have no idea who wrote it.

24

Sadly, I can’t find any of my writing from before about 5th grade, my folks were not the saving type. My very first piece of fiction, back in 1st grade, was a story about animals with mixed up voices. I now know that my idea was stolen by the person who wrote The Cow who Said Oink. But I’m not bitter about it. :slight_smile:

Here, in its entirety is a story I wrote when I was 12, that my parents found impressive and disturbing both. Original typing has been preserved for your consideration.

*** AFTERWARDS ** By Shannon *****

  A blinding flash. A deafening roar . Coldness. Darkness.
  Was I alive or dead?A ripping pain.A sickening smell.Death and
destruction all around me.Where am I? Who am I? I am Brian
  Mao. I am at a nuclear power plant.It has exploded.How will I
  survive? Will I make it back? Mutilated animals. terrible
  obstacles to overcome .My family, will I ever see them again?
  Another  wave of pain.My leg is cut open.I need a splint.I see
  a mangled sapling . I will use it as a splint. Along with some
  vines.I am finished. It is getting dark.I must find shelter.
  No people .I am the only one. No buildings.Not one.I see a cave.
  I crawl to it , ever so slowly.There are no sounds. No talking.
  I am near the end.My breathing becomes shallow .My heart stops.
I am dead now. I am floating above my body .
I am pleased that I am gone .No more suffering .EVER.
                     THE END *

I think, given my early works, it hardly comes as a surpise that my writing efforts have progressed to having written my first (abet short) novel about four recent college grads who accidentally open Pandora’s Box…

25

Good grief! :eek:

I didn’t know I was a plagiarist, I swear. However, I read voraciously as a kid, was reading before I started school so perhaps I did a knock-off version. Oh, well…

I’m fairly sure the others are original though. My Mom was cleaning out her closet a couple of weeks ago and found them. My brothers had a great laugh at my expense.

Glad someone likes them though. :slight_smile:

Oh, and Jarbabyj
“Please don’t love the tinsel” is my new favorite Christmas line. I love it, it says it all! You and your sister are quite talented.

26

Moderator’s Note:

Great stuff, folks–well, at least the ones intended to show precocious skill. Better than my 5th grade biographical essay. I wrote of my messily divorced parents: “They got married in 1941, the same year the other war was declared.” Whoops.

No reflection a’tall on the content or intent but it isn’t really opinion or a poll so off it goes to MPSIMS.

TVeblen
for IMHO

27

All I can remember is a short poem that I wrote way back in (I think) Junior High School :

“One, two
Ecology stew
Three, four
Vietnam War
Five, Six
President Nix
Seven, Eight
Biafra’s Fate
Nine, Ten
Peace, but when?”

28

In eighth grade, I wrote a story about five pages long that was in second person, past tense. In the end, I killed the main character (“You”), by having death throwing him off a building. It was classic, and if i’d had the time, I coulda done better.

I also had a little book I made in first grade about me getting a scar I have inbetween my eyes. It’s funny, because I had a rather graphic and gory drawing of me lying on a table and blood gushing out of my head.

29

I don’t believe my mother saved my early work, and I think I destroyed my adolescent hackwork while preparing to go off to college. However, I can remember some of a poem I wrote in the fifth grade. The assigned theme was “The Environment”, and my poem was titled “Look What Shape the World Is In”. Each verse consisted of five lines, for in the AABB rhyme scheme, with the fifth line in each verse being the title phrase. It went on at great length about the poor state of affairs here on earth (at one point I rhymed “drugs” with “slugs”). The final verse, however, was a bit of sugary optimism that I tacked on because my teacher told me my poem was “too depressing” otherwise.

30

From my Childcraft book vol. 2:

*“MUD” by Polly Chase Boyden

Mud is very nice to feel
All squishy-squashy between the toes!
I’d rather wade is wiggly mud
Then smell a yellow rose. *

~cough~ Notice the similarities?

(I did the same thing when I was in 2nd grade. But I got “my” poems from Highlights magazines. :))

31

The first writing effort that I really remember was the infamous “first paragraph” in fifth grade. We had to write about our best friend, a favorite food, or our family pet. Well… I didn’t have any friends (as the result of a crooked “wallball” game… long story for another time), and we didn’t have a pet. So I wrote about the school’s pepperoni pizza.

Mrs. Abbot thought it was a work of genius, and I had to live through the humiliation of having it put on an overhead for the entire class to read. I can’t believe I actually wrote a glowing review of the frickin’ shrink-wrapped pizza. shudder

32

When my daughter was in 3rd grade, the teacher was having the students keep a daily diary. One day, my daughter wrote about how I was going to squeeze her head like a pimple. (I used to tease her with that) It was very embarrassing to have to explain about that one.

33

I wrote this the summer after Kindergarten:

I love my littel garden
it is so small
but best I liek the willow teres
they are so tall.

My mom loves it so much she keeps it on her bulletin board at work. When I graduated high school the parents could buy a chunk of space among the adverts in the yearbook. They used this space to embarass their graduating children by publishing old photos of Junior with chocolate cake smeared in his hair, or of Sally’s first ballet recital.
Mom published the poem.

34

Whoops . . . gotta read the whole thread before posting something. Darn you, Helena - busting people for plagarizing before I get the chance! :wink:

35

This sounds like one of those Calvin Klein perfume ad’s (read in a bored british accent.) " Buy Dizzy, by Calvin. Capture your Youth" blah blah blah.

36

I can remember only one juvenile literary landmark.

Second grade: What Animal Would You Like To Be? Everyone else wanted to be puppies, kittens or horses.

I wanted to be a porpoise.

We’d just gotten back from the cliched mid-50’s family vacation to Florida and SeaWorld. I’d developed a non-cliched hatred of clammy, itchy bathing suits, rubbery swim caps and RULES. And got bitterly vocal about it. Porpoises swam anytime they liked and got to do it naked.

My teacher was concerned, spotting a mini-nudist anarchist in the making. Fortunately my parents were amused.

This early literary document was lost, alas, but I heard about it well into my 20’s.

Veb

37

Oh, man these are cracking me up!
I believe this is my first creative writing effort, written in first grade (I’m going by the two inch high lined paper)
The Magic Eyeglasses

Once there was a man who couldn’t see very well. So he went to the store to get a pair of glasses. So he started to walk to the store. But when he bought it he didn’t read the sign and it said: magic eyeglasses. But when he put them on he could see everything and now he can see.
The End

This one KILLS me, I was in fourth grade and I must have just seen ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ I don’t know what happened to the paper I turned in, because there a quite a few lines crossed out, so I’m sure this was just a rough draft. I left all spelling and punctuation as written for your reading enjoyment.
So I said to God…… (There is a note in the margin from my teacher that it should be G-d not God)

Hello there! My name is Gorge, I’m and angle. I died in 1948 after the war. When thiggs were peaceful. Now what have the got on earth! They have t.v. ok. But the crap they have on, (Bleep!) opp’s penlty number 6. Let me explain about the bleep God said no words like “you know what! Any how back to what I was saying. God thinks all t.v, prostitotion, robbey murder and Richard Nixion and fans should be cut out of the world. (Also Howard Coselle*****) My job is to clean up the world, what I have to do is find a truly good person.

There are 200,000,0000 people in the world and I have to pick one! If I do find a truly good person, I must take control of him

It ends there; I can’t even imagine the ending for that one.
Apparently (?) we had an assignment to write a letter to someone for reasons I can’t even remember. This was also fourth grade. I guess I was on a roll. (I wish you guys could see the CURSIVE writing in this one!) As before, all spelling and punctuation has be reproduced as originally written.
The Letter
Dear Sam, (I had two Grandpa Sams at the time. …so really, I’m not all that creative)
Boy, did I lie!!! I told a littel white lye! Oop’s sorry l-i-e. Last weak opp’s sorry w-e-e-k we had a big spelling test to decide who was the champion speller. I told everyone that I would win. Out of 20 words I got 1 wright, oop’s r-i-g-h-t
I was the laghing stock of my school. I vowed never to lye again. Oop’s sorry, l-i-e.

Love
Jack

Ps. I lyed Oop’s sorry l-i-e-d. This story isn’t true

Love
Jack (Jack is my dad’s name so, I REALLY wasn’t creative. Except of course with the spelling)
The illustrations for this story are priceless. I’ve got to see if I can scan them in.

I’ve got one more floating around here, I’ll have to dig it out.

*****Howard Cosselle? I can’t believe I even knew who he was! And why in parenthesis?

38

I am laughing SO hard right now! I mean, it’s all great, but for some reason, this line really got me.

Thanks, and keep it coming, guys. I had almost forgotten about this thread!

39

I was big on poetry in second and third grade. My best one (or so I thought then) was called “The Slurpy Slimy Creature.” I still know it by heart. ~clears throat~

*There’s a slurpy slimy creature
Down in the deep blue sea.
He may eat all others but he won’t eat me,
No, he won’t eat me.
He may eat all others but he won’t eat me.

Oh look! I’m going down a slide!
Oh no, it’s the monster’s throat I’m inside!
Now I’m in his stomach -
Oh dread! I never even knew that I was once inside his head!

There’s a slurpy slimy creature down in the deep blue sea.
He already ate all others,
And he also ate ME! *

~buries head in hands~ And to think that poem was my pride and joy when I was nine years old. :o

40

Yeah, I was a great writer too. I wrote one essay in first grade about my mom (couldn’t have been too long, I think I wrote it in crayon) along these lines:

I love my mom because she buys me toys and she is kind. She is sort of fat though.

…It went up on the bulletin board in the hallway across from the main school office. Mom promptly lost 35 pounds.

And, in case my teacher didn’t think I was graphic enough, I had just finished reading “Growing Up,” a book about where babies come from, when I was asked to write a sentence with the word “tiniest.” I came up with:

A sperm is the tiniest thing I know.

sheesh. My mother let it go through, at my insistence, and according to her the teacher showed it to all the other teachers in the lunchroom. It was evidently the hit of the week at my elementary school. My mom STILL teases me about it.

Way to bring up those memories! sigh