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Burn after reading. Or possibly during.
Are you ready for awfulness? Because this is really, really awful.
On my most recent visit to the parental units I uncovered a fair amount of old writing, dating back as far as 1999. And man, do I have some totally fucking rejected shit for you guys. Seriously, I hit the motherfucking payload.
This is how I wrote circa 1999/early 2000. I was a teenager. I wrote really awful crap. I admit to this, like a lot of other fic writers, but there’s no way to really illustrate how awful this crap was. It’s easy for me to say “Oh, I too used to write shitty!” (which argues the case that I don’t write shit nowadays, which is in itself a lie, you guys, it’s just less shitty than it was twelve years ago); it’s easy for anyone to say they used to write shitty and then get on other people’s cases for writing shitty, but the simple fact of the matter is everybody has their own personal Shitty Writing Stage. Some people just choose to be assholes to other people about their shitty writing, whether it’s someone defending their work or ripping into somebody else’s. It goes both ways.
I guess my point is just that it’s important to look back at what you grew from and recognize that it doesn’t behoove anybody, least of all yourself, to be elitist or develop some weird superiority complex about who you are and what makes you better than everyone else. We all have to start somewhere. Also, humility? Kind of an admirable trait. At least from my limited perspective. (I will let you decide for yourself whether I’m being a hypocrite or just consciously ironic here.)
My other point is: I wrote some really awful crap. And this is really, truly awful.
The original is handwritten in a notebook; I’ve tried to transcribe all of it, including the parts I scratched out, so you can see even my juvenile editing attempts did little to improve its quality. I considered inserting commentary along with this, but quickly realized that every other comment I made would just be me facepalming. A lot. I’m serious, there are not enough facepalm gifs in the world to adequately convey the amount of facepalming that occurred as I read through this garbage that once spewed from my pen. Pepper some really agonized groans and pained laughter throughout and you pretty much have an accurate account of my real-life reaction to this.
So. Without further ado. Proto-sbj. Or, this is really awful shit.
I honestly don’t remember what the original plot of this was, except that the boys are alive again (SURPRISE!) and there is awkwardness between them and the girls. Wow. This is totally not what TEF is about. How far we’ve come.
--
“I did WHAT?!?!” Brick screamed.
“Jesus, man, calm down!” Butch winced.He’d been standing right next to Brick when he exploded.
Brick grabbed his hat and tried to pull it down over his eyes. Panic was quickly rising in his throat, and he paced back and forth across the room. “Oh my god oh my god oh my god. I can’t believe I did that! Why didn’t you guys tell me to shut up?!?!” He stopped in front of Boomer, perched on an armchair. His brother only shrugged.
“Dunno.”
“AARGH!” Brick closed his eyes and turned to the wall, banging his forehead repeatedly on the slick white surface.
“Dude, if you keep that up, you’ll give yourself another concussion,” Butch said.
Brick paused long enough to look at him. “With any luck I’ll suffer a brain aneurysm and drop dead tomorrow.” He went back to banging his head on the wall.
“Oh, come on, bro. It’s not that bad.” Boomer took his brother by the arms and dragged him to the armchair he’d been sitting in. Brick sighed and placed a hand over his eyes.
“Yeah,” Butch chimed in. “Just think. Tomorrow when you see her, you can fill in the awkward silence by—” he grabbed Boomer and swung him into his arms, “taking her by the hand swinging her into your arms, gazing passionately into her eyes, and plantin’ a big wet one right there on her mouth. You can give her tongue a little exercise too.” He demonstrated by grabbing Boomer and bending over him, saying dramatically, “I LOVE you, Blossom!” Boomer swooned and said in a high falsetto voice, “Oh, Brick!”
“Marry me!”
“Oh, yes, I will! Kiss me, you savage beast, you!”
Brick tackled them and all 3 of them went down in a tangle of fists, kicks, and the occasional curse or two.
“Shut up!”
“Ha! Look at him! He’s blushing!”
“You’re dead, Boomer!”
“Are you this rough when you and your girlfriend are wrestling?”
“BUTCH!”
“I can’t wait to be an uncle! Can you, Butch?”
“I can just imagine the happy couple raising little superheroes of their own!”
“Dammit, you little—”
“Better learn to control that temper of yours, or you and your future wife are in fer some rocky times ahead!”
“Aw, don’t sweat it! They can kiss and make up afterwards!”
“WHY WON’T YOU TWO SHUT UP!?!?”
***
Blossom stared at the phone. Slowly she picked it up and started to dial a number. She hesitated on the 7th one.
Bubbles strolled in. “Who ya callin’?”
Blossom slammed the phone back down. “No one.”
Her sister looked at her. “Really.” She sped over to the phone and hit redial, picking it up and listening intently. “The number sounds like… 336-922… you only dialed 6 numbers.”
“No I didn’t.” Blossom said quickly.
“That number sounds real familiar,” Bubbles spoke out loud, ignoring her sister’s last comment. She dropped the phone back on the receiver and reached into her back pocket. Pulling a sheet of paper out of it, her eyes flew down the page.
Blossom tried to change the subject. “How could you tell what number I dialed?”
“Good ears.” Bubbles stopped, and lowered the page slowly, grinning maniacally. “I know who you were calling…”
“Oh really? How would you know?” Blossom’s voice quavered. Her sister shoved the page in her face and pointed. “I have a fine arts directory list. Boomer’s in band, and seeing as a certain tall, mysterious, creative writing photo-journalist, (okay I know I said I opted not to do commentary but seriously LOL TEENAGE!SELF WHY) not to mention your undeniable equal in brain-power academic scholar that wearsa ared hat and drives a nice car happens to be his brother…” Bubbles smirked. “…You must be callingHIM.” BRICK.”
“Just to see if he woke up!” Blossom immediately exclaimed, willing herself not to blush. “I mean… you know, he did take a nasty blow to the head… and... all…”
“Sure.” Bubbles stuffed the folded sheet back into her pocket and walked out. Blossom picked up the phone and dialed again. 3-3-6-9-2-2… She stopped, hovering over the last number.
“1.” Her sister’s blonde pigtailed head poked through the doorway. “The last number’s 1.” She smiled and disappeared again.
“Blossom couldn’t help it; she blushed.
--
But that’s not all, you guys! NO. There’s even more awfulness that my naïve, writerly-challenged self wrote. (But I shall share those with you another time.)
Besides the cringe-inducing characterization (or complete lack thereof) and incredibly lame dialogue, not to mention the fugly formatting, I was actually pretty surprised (and initially horrified by, ngl) how my narrative… really hasn’t changed much. I mean, Ithink pray to God it’s gotten better, but certain lines definitely read very familiar to me. Thank God I don’t start sentences with adverbs now, though. (I think. I hope. OH GOD)
March may be busier than I anticipated, so I have to apologize if I’m not around as often. I’m trying to dedicate what little time I do spend on the computer to continuing TEF, which is slowly progressing. My hope is by the end of the month my output will be back to where it was. (My real hope is that I’ll have another chapter done then, but let’s start with something reasonable maybe!)
Oh man, guys, tell me what you thought of this. Because I totally have more. And I’m totally going to make you guys suffer through this garbage with me. (If you thought this was bad, geez, WAIT TILL WE GET TO THE ONE WHERE BRICK’S DYING AND HE AND BLOSSOM ARE ALL BFFS. I know it can’t possibly be worse than it sounds but oh, you underestimate teenage!me. You greatly underestimate teenage!me.)
On my most recent visit to the parental units I uncovered a fair amount of old writing, dating back as far as 1999. And man, do I have some totally fucking rejected shit for you guys. Seriously, I hit the motherfucking payload.
This is how I wrote circa 1999/early 2000. I was a teenager. I wrote really awful crap. I admit to this, like a lot of other fic writers, but there’s no way to really illustrate how awful this crap was. It’s easy for me to say “Oh, I too used to write shitty!” (which argues the case that I don’t write shit nowadays, which is in itself a lie, you guys, it’s just less shitty than it was twelve years ago); it’s easy for anyone to say they used to write shitty and then get on other people’s cases for writing shitty, but the simple fact of the matter is everybody has their own personal Shitty Writing Stage. Some people just choose to be assholes to other people about their shitty writing, whether it’s someone defending their work or ripping into somebody else’s. It goes both ways.
I guess my point is just that it’s important to look back at what you grew from and recognize that it doesn’t behoove anybody, least of all yourself, to be elitist or develop some weird superiority complex about who you are and what makes you better than everyone else. We all have to start somewhere. Also, humility? Kind of an admirable trait. At least from my limited perspective. (I will let you decide for yourself whether I’m being a hypocrite or just consciously ironic here.)
My other point is: I wrote some really awful crap. And this is really, truly awful.
The original is handwritten in a notebook; I’ve tried to transcribe all of it, including the parts I scratched out, so you can see even my juvenile editing attempts did little to improve its quality. I considered inserting commentary along with this, but quickly realized that every other comment I made would just be me facepalming. A lot. I’m serious, there are not enough facepalm gifs in the world to adequately convey the amount of facepalming that occurred as I read through this garbage that once spewed from my pen. Pepper some really agonized groans and pained laughter throughout and you pretty much have an accurate account of my real-life reaction to this.
So. Without further ado. Proto-sbj. Or, this is really awful shit.
I honestly don’t remember what the original plot of this was, except that the boys are alive again (SURPRISE!) and there is awkwardness between them and the girls. Wow. This is totally not what TEF is about. How far we’ve come.
--
“I did WHAT?!?!” Brick screamed.
“Jesus, man, calm down!” Butch winced.
Brick grabbed his hat and tried to pull it down over his eyes. Panic was quickly rising in his throat, and he paced back and forth across the room. “Oh my god oh my god oh my god. I can’t believe I did that! Why didn’t you guys tell me to shut up?!?!” He stopped in front of Boomer, perched on an armchair. His brother only shrugged.
“Dunno.”
“AARGH!” Brick closed his eyes and turned to the wall, banging his forehead repeatedly on the slick white surface.
“Dude, if you keep that up, you’ll give yourself another concussion,” Butch said.
Brick paused long enough to look at him. “With any luck I’ll suffer a brain aneurysm and drop dead tomorrow.” He went back to banging his head on the wall.
“Oh, come on, bro. It’s not that bad.” Boomer took his brother by the arms and dragged him to the armchair he’d been sitting in. Brick sighed and placed a hand over his eyes.
“Yeah,” Butch chimed in. “Just think. Tomorrow when you see her, you can fill in the awkward silence by
“Marry me!”
“Oh, yes, I will! Kiss me, you savage beast, you!”
Brick tackled them and all 3 of them went down in a tangle of fists, kicks, and the occasional curse or two.
“Shut up!”
“Ha! Look at him! He’s blushing!”
“You’re dead, Boomer!”
“Are you this rough when you and your girlfriend are wrestling?”
“BUTCH!”
“I can’t wait to be an uncle! Can you, Butch?”
“I can just imagine the happy couple raising little superheroes of their own!”
“Dammit, you little—”
“Better learn to control that temper of yours, or you and your future wife are in fer some rocky times ahead!”
“Aw, don’t sweat it! They can kiss and make up afterwards!”
“WHY WON’T YOU TWO SHUT UP!?!?”
***
Blossom stared at the phone. Slowly she picked it up and started to dial a number. She hesitated on the 7th one.
Bubbles strolled in. “Who ya callin’?”
Blossom slammed the phone back down. “No one.”
Her sister looked at her. “Really.” She sped over to the phone and hit redial, picking it up and listening intently. “The number sounds like… 336-922… you only dialed 6 numbers.”
“No I didn’t.” Blossom said quickly.
“That number sounds real familiar,” Bubbles spoke out loud, ignoring her sister’s last comment. She dropped the phone back on the receiver and reached into her back pocket. Pulling a sheet of paper out of it, her eyes flew down the page.
Blossom tried to change the subject. “How could you tell what number I dialed?”
“Good ears.” Bubbles stopped, and lowered the page slowly, grinning maniacally. “I know who you were calling…”
“Oh really? How would you know?” Blossom’s voice quavered. Her sister shoved the page in her face and pointed. “I have a fine arts directory list. Boomer’s in band, and seeing as a certain tall, mysterious, creative writing photo-journalist, (okay I know I said I opted not to do commentary but seriously LOL TEENAGE!SELF WHY) not to mention your undeniable equal in brain-power academic scholar that wearsa ared hat and drives a nice car happens to be his brother…” Bubbles smirked. “…You must be calling
“Just to see if he woke up!” Blossom immediately exclaimed, willing herself not to blush. “I mean… you know, he did take a nasty blow to the head… and... all…”
“Sure.” Bubbles stuffed the folded sheet back into her pocket and walked out. Blossom picked up the phone and dialed again. 3-3-6-9-2-2… She stopped, hovering over the last number.
“1.” Her sister’s blonde pigtailed head poked through the doorway. “The last number’s 1.” She smiled and disappeared again.
--
But that’s not all, you guys! NO. There’s even more awfulness that my naïve, writerly-challenged self wrote. (But I shall share those with you another time.)
Besides the cringe-inducing characterization (or complete lack thereof) and incredibly lame dialogue, not to mention the fugly formatting, I was actually pretty surprised (and initially horrified by, ngl) how my narrative… really hasn’t changed much. I mean, I
March may be busier than I anticipated, so I have to apologize if I’m not around as often. I’m trying to dedicate what little time I do spend on the computer to continuing TEF, which is slowly progressing. My hope is by the end of the month my output will be back to where it was. (My real hope is that I’ll have another chapter done then, but let’s start with something reasonable maybe!)
Oh man, guys, tell me what you thought of this. Because I totally have more. And I’m totally going to make you guys suffer through this garbage with me. (If you thought this was bad, geez, WAIT TILL WE GET TO THE ONE WHERE BRICK’S DYING AND HE AND BLOSSOM ARE ALL BFFS. I know it can’t possibly be worse than it sounds but oh, you underestimate teenage!me. You greatly underestimate teenage!me.)