Twenty-five years ago, I was an 11–year-old bookworm who loved writing stories as much as reading them. My characters immersed themselves in tales like Mystery of the Stone Castle, Mystery at the Skating Rink, The Secret of the Sea Falcon, A Ghost at the Beach, Hidden Treasure, The Mysterious Relatives, and the Mysterious Bank Robbery. I wrote standalones, as well as a series featuring teenage amateur sleuth Cathy Summers and her sidekick Katie.
I wrote a lot about young psychics also, which is interesting as my two books-in-the-works both feature psychic characters.
Just for fun, now and then I’ll post excerpts from some of these old stories on my blog. I thought it would be fun to dig into these stories and see the similarities and differences to my adult writing style. I’m also doing it as a reminder to nurture your children’s talents and interests, as my parents did, and help steer them down the right path. There is a wonderful book called A Walk With Daimon, by Peter K. Delani, which describes the importance of following the right path.
Be sure to nurture your own inner child as well. If you liked painting, writing, music, or drawing as a child and have given it up due to time constraints, that part of you is still buried somewhere inside you. Let it come out to play.
I’d love to see some of your old stories! You started your novelist career early. In my teen years, I wrote a lot of tormented poetry. I look back at it now and wonder where it all came from!
Ooh, if you still have it, you’ll have to share an excerpt here sometime! I would love to find some authors who have been writing since childhood and have saved their stories so that they can share an excerpt. I’ve been typing up about 7 or 8 openers from my fourth and fifth grade stories – I have several more to go. I’ve thought about serializing an entire one here, but that might be pushing it! The weird thing is every now and then, I find a character name in my childhood stories that I also used in one of my later novels.
Nurture your inner child. That’s such wonderful advice. Makes me think about painting with watercolors and baking cookies (instead of writing).
I used to love baking cookies too, Patrica, and little cakes in my Easy Bake Oven!