Last night while I was searching for some character notes, I came across the notebooks containing the very poorly-written novel attempt from when I was in high school. I never finished it, but I felt I had it planned out for sequels and other nonsense. The original partial draft is really bad, poorly written, kind of insensitive, and all sorts of crap. I didn't touch it much past my first creative writing class I took as a sophomore in college, mostly because I began to realize how horrible it was, and by then had grown up a little and had developed much different writing goals than what I had then.
I haven't looked at it in years. And believe me, flipping through it again was much more embarassing than I thought it would be, and I felt very, VERY thankful that I've grown as a writer since then. (Thank goodness for all of my fabulous writing classes and professors.)
I did find a second draft of a scene that wasn't the same degree of awful as the original draft, and so I thought I'd share it below. It was written about six years ago, probably around when I graduated high school or early freshman year of college. Don't say I didn't warn you.
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Melinda's basement was large and carpeted in a pretty cranberry shade. The main room, the first you entered when you came down the staircase, was a TV room, complete with two squashy sofas, an armchair, and coffee table. A closet was located beside a doorway leading to two other rooms, Melinda's bedroom and a laundry room.
Melinda led us down the staircase and many of the others went directly for seats on the couches as if they'd done this kind of thing all the time.
Only Kevin, Jessica, mark, and I were left to fend for ourselves for seating.
"Let's have our own party over here," Jessica said, motioning to an open wall area next to the food table, and we sat down as Melinda cleared her throat loudly to get everyone's attention.
"Okay, so before anything begins, a couple of rules. No drinking at this party. It won't be good to have a hangover the second week of school." She paused, while Cody, Kenzi, and Don laughed. "Next, we have to watch the noise level. Mom's organizing her office on the second floor, and she doesn't want to hear us. So, have fun, but not so much that she hears it clearly. Third, this is a movie party, so don't spoil the ending for those who haven't seen it! Also, the theme is 'Double the Fun,' so there will be two movies, two kinds of every kind of food, and--" she gave Kevin an odd look--"we will be playing Fourteen Minutes in Heaven."
"OH MY GOSH," Kevin said. "You're serious?" He fell over on his side in shock when she nodded.
"Names will be drawn for those who are single, and couples will have their own turn as well." Melinda pulled two containers each filled with with folded up pieces of paper out from under the food table. She stuck a hand in one of them, and pulled a slip out. "First up is Dani and Brad."
Danielle squealed loudly as she jumped up from one of the sofas, grabbed her boyfriend's hand, and shimmied into the closet. The door shut behind them with a click of final doom.
"Can we start the movie?" Laura asked, walking up to the DVD unit.
"Yeah," Melinda said, going to help.
"You guys," Kevin said, still on his side. "We get fourteen minutes. At a time."
"Calm down, Romeo," Jessica told him, as he sat up slowly. "If you fuss over it too much, you might not get your Juliet."
"Are you okay with this game, Jess?" Mark asked her, rocking on his knees.
Jessica made a face not unlike when you eat something sour. "Better than spin the bottle any day. Still, there's the element of the unknown along with it...What if I get a weirdo, like Don?"
"I heard that," Don called, his eyes glued to the movie that was now playing on the TV.
Jessica rolled her eyes.
Kevin leaned in. "There's a way to solve that issue, you know."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "What's the answer?"
"Settle down, find a nice steady boyfriend. Then you know he's not weird. AND he wants to kiss you because he loves you for you, and is not just a perverted bag of testosterone."
"Don't talk to me, Kevin, you're making my brain hurt with your crazy outlook on life."
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Yep. I need to burn it. *sigh*
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