I’ve just spent the last half an hour wetting myself laughing over how ridiculously awful some of my early prose was.

Google Documents has now decided to be Google Drive, which for some reason is a blocked address at work. I discovered this to my horror yesterday, but I eventually found another cloud-like place to store my writing. In the transferral process, I noticed that there were were several stories that I hadn’t touched since between 2006-2008 so I decided to load ’em up and have a squiz. HA HA.
I’ve always fancied myself a writer and a total pantser when it comes to stories and structure and it’s never been more apparent. I’m not even going to go into how horrendously bad the story I’ve always thought would be my magnum opus is. It was so badly written even I couldn’t work out what was happening and I’d written the bloody thing. My research and notes however, were impeccable.

I did get a little bit of a kick at reading the revenge story I began writing when I was 19. I’d been freshly dumped by a boy who supposedly fancied me for my intelligence and wit, but in the end seemed to prefer dim-witted, boring blondes with big boobs. It wasn’t the fact that I was dumped that annoyed me so, it was the fact that he’d decided that she was better than I was, when she clearly was not. So I decided to ‘eviscerate him in fiction’, to quote the Geoffrey Chaucer of A Knight’s Tale. I managed to read through the entire 40K words and laughed my head off at the horrendous structuring and speech (everyone apparently talks just like me), although I did find a few gems that could be polished off and reused. Let me see if I can find some good ones… (FYI, it’s written in first person/diary format. I seem to have been unable to decide which I liked better. Probably watched too much Bridget Jones):

On describing an ex-girlfriend of the protagonist’s brother:

She actually believed my dad when he told her his name was Zolly and he was really a researcher for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but was stranded on Earth and decided to make a living here until someone from the planet Madeus Uppius could come and rescue him. After all, it was a fair hike from one side of the galaxy to the other. He expected they would be here any day.  She actually asked if Angus and Robertson sold a copy. When dad told her Uranus was a fantastic holiday planet she phoned Flight Centre and asked for a return ticket. My dad is a nasty bastard sometimes. Hilarious however.

On why all men are wankers :

This may or may not have something to do with my unfortunate tendency to fall outrageously in love with some of the most fucked up people on this earth who, for one reason or another, all piss off soon enough and leave me to wonder if I am doomed to become a hideous Aunt Gertrude. You know Aunt Gertrude. She’s the fat unmarried great aunt that smells like mothballs and wee, has lots of cats, and is about three stubbies short of a six pack.

I used to think perhaps there may be something wrong with me, what with all these relationships with different men failing (who I personally theorized all grew from the same part of the cabbage patch that a rabid dog must have urinated on), but I realize now that the fault is more to do with the Y chromosome than stray dogs.

I read somewhere that scientists have a theory that over half the men on this planet can trace their lineage back to Genghis Khan.  The way I understand this is that he took over half the known world of the time, killed all the men that were actually hanging around doing something useful, killed all the children of said useful men and raped all the women, impregnating them all and since there were no other men or kiddies about they all had to procreate with the other Khan offspring in a vile incestuous type relationship. Then the kiddies of the kiddies started shagging all their rellies and so on and so forth.
So not only did he take over the world, he polluted the gene pool with all his own genes and that is why over half the men today are all stupid, chauvinistic, egotistical pigs on power trips. They all secretly aspire to be like their ultimate grandfather.

Of course I have no idea whether or not that’s actually true, but it certainly seems to make sense to me. I knew there had to be a valid reason why men are pigs, and this explains it nicely.

The protagonist’s theory of the telephone (clearly written before the prevalence of mobile phones):

Now there is a sound that is almost as heinous as an alarm clock. The persistent urgent ringing, a sound so forceful it commands you to instantaneously drop everything you are doing, fall over all the furniture, stub your toes and kick things lying discarded on the floor (like CDs, videos, magazines, books, last nights dinner perhaps) in a valiant effort to answer the phone before the person on the other end loses interest in you. It’s a sound that whilst irritating and rather painful if your way to it is generally barred by assortments of furniture and other household detritus, is a sound that reminds you that there are people out there that want you, that hold you in such high regard they will pay money to speak to you, a sound that reminds you that no matter what you think you are not alone in the universe…unless of course the call is from telemarketers or debt collection agencies in which case they are simply calling to tell you that you in fact are alone in the universe and not only that, but they are going to compound your misery.

A conversation:

Right. Either mum had finally gone completely round the bend, or my father was having an affair. Knowing my mother for the logical and rational thinker she is, I’m assumed that dad is plugging the milkmaid.

Liara was looking at me from across the table.
“B1?”She asked.
“B2” I replied.
Mum looked at us strangely.
Ah, the best part of a mother who was always busy and important during our pre-school years. She never ever understood references to the most famous lines ever said by giant bananas.

And, possibly my favourite of the lot because it certainly doesn’t illustrate brilliantly how bitter and angry I was (that was sarcasm, FYI), a character description for the woman that the protagonist’s boyfriend cheats on her with:

Stupid snotty little toerag resembling one of those white puffed up ghost things from ghostbusters. Wish I had one of those little gun things to suck her into oblivion and be done with it.

Bindi is stupid name, for stupid girl. Should come with a warning label like some confectionary (ie licorice and chewing gum) ‘Warning: May have laxative effect’
Well she gives me the shits anyway.