Writing Wednesday : Memories

Yes, I know that's it's actually Thursday but I didn't get the "Writing Wednesday" done yesterday because I was school clothes shopping with my little sister. And recovering from the Taylor Swift concert. (Singing and jumping and standing up for three hours straight wears one down.)

My mom gave me a box with all of my school papers she's saved over the years. I started going through it yesterday and I was gobsmacked. (It's a word.) I've always wondering (since I started *seriously* writing this trilogy of mine) when I really got my start writing. The proof was in the yellow cardboard school bus box my mom handed to me.

My school journal from when I was seven years old (second grade) is hilarious. You can tell the days my teacher gave us a prompt that I didn't care to write about. "Today is Tuesday. I am having a good day at school." Wow. That's inspired. Others are SO funny! I'll probably be sprinkling these little tidbits into my blog posts for a while. (Not that 7 year old Melissa was a great writer but she was very opinionated. And funny at times.) I'll keep the punctuation and spelling the same as it was then. (Cringe.)

"December 5, 1988. This is a season for a jolly time to be with your family." (Was I suddenly British? "Jolly"?)


"December 6, 1988. "Today is Tuesday and I...am cold very very cold  I am cold because it is cold out side  I have a sweder but it is still cold but now I am in my class Room and Mrs. Takata turned on the heater and now I am glad."


"March 3, 1989. I am going to make a book called ; Called to much it is a story about a girl who called her friend to much and everyone was so mad at her that she was not to call anyone ever agin and she was so mad at her parnets that she ran away." (What was I thinking?? And nice semi-colon there, Miss.)

I found a short story that I wrote in high school that I thought I had thrown away. I've mourned the loss of that story ("The Hated Yellow Paper") for years. But it was in the box!! My sister read it out loud as we drove to the store for school clothes shopping. It was cringeworthy in parts and smileworthy in others. (Sister: "Wow. You used 'face' three times in the last two sentences.") I found a paper that I wrote for my 11th grade Honors English class titled "My Passion, My Future." "I plan to go to college (check!) and become an English major (check!) and be a high school English teacher (substitute teacher right now, close). In ten years, I will be a successful teacher with many books, both at home (haha! yes!) and in my classroom. Maybe I'll have already started writing my own book." What?! I wrote that in 11th grade?! I do not remember that. :) It's been fun reading through all of these old papers and remembering different moments in my life, writerly and otherwise.

Excuse me. I'll be diving into my past for a while. :)