Strange and Glorious: A Peek at my Imagination
The quarantine started the week before my birthday, last March. It was a blow, because suddenly everything was shut down and I couldn’t go anywhere. I had planned on going on a girl’s date with my mom, to go to a coffeeshop somewhere and just have fun. I hadn’t done that in a long time, and I was excited to have some time away on my birthday.
When we found out about the quarantine that was shutting down the whole world, it was scary. Everyone was confused, and nobody knew what to do. Me? I was just sad that the virus couldn’t have waited another week, until after my birthday! The little things can hurt the most, sometimes.
Anyway, it was a month later that I began to think about what on earth I would do during the quarantine. I figured the whole virus would be over soon, so I was looking for something to do to pass the time, since we would be stuck at home for a while. (We are at home a lot, either way, being homeschooled, so quarantining wasn’t that much different than everyday life, really.)
It was around the beginning of April that I decided that I would write a novel. Sounds a bit ambitious, yes? It was, and to be honest I never finished any of my would-be novels. However, I started writing earnestly with the intention of finishing a story. That was a big step; I hadn’t really thought seriously about writing a real-life big fat Novel.
My first story I worked on was about a large family. (A family, coincidentally, that had six kids. Sound familiar?) I love that story, and all the characters, and I still hope to write more in that story someday.
Another story I wrote a chapter in was one that I called “The Invisible Girl.” It was weird, I must admit, and almost creepy. It was about a girl who had been invisible for four years after she put on a golden locket from an eccentric aunt. My two test readers both gave the same verdict: Sort of creepy… maybe work on your other stories instead. I was glad for the input, and besides, I didn’t know where I would be going with it. My imagination is a strange and glorious thing.
The third story was the one that really lit my brain on fire. (Figuratively, of course!)
It was three short paragraphs about a far off land, with a king and a fallen kingdom, and goblins who wanted to destroy the world. It was one of my favorites that I started, and those three paragraphs launched something larger than I had realized was possible.
From that little flash of inspiration came dozens of Word documents, and my aforementioned clunky silver computer filled with files, each with perhaps a few paragraphs or a couple pages of what could someday be a story.
So with two characters, faulty and imperfect as they may be, I set out to write them on paper. And you know, I am a bit of an idealist. If it isn’t perfect the first time, then I feel like a failure. I’ve been working on that personally, and I have chosen to give myself freedom of my faults. Of course, it won’t be perfect the first time. It won’t be perfect the second of third time, either… it will never be the way I imagine it– but I won’t ever know unless I try.
As a family, we are going on a three-day vacation next week, if all goes well. (Meaning, unless one of us falls deathly ill, we’re going.) As soon as I found out, guess what happened? I thought, “Perfect– three days to get a whole lot of writing done!”
Of course as soon as I say that, everyone goes “I knew it,” or “Uggh,” and then they comment that I likely won’t be seen for three days straight. If all goes as I hope, the inspiration will strike and the words will just pour out into lovely pages of narration that I will finally be able to dub ‘my story’. Well, we’ll see about that. I have high hopes for my current big story idea, and anyway, if I don’t write pages of beautiful story, I will at least have a blog to work on. That’s something, anyway.
Okay, I have asked a lot of you (my faithful readers) what you would like to see more of from my blog, especially after my last post where I plainly stated that sometimes I just run out of ideas! So now that I have a wonderful list of all the things I hope to write about, here are some more things that you can watch for in the next weeks and months.
- Book and movie reviews
- Short stories, and book talk
- Yet more ramblings on life, etc.
- My thoughts on various subjects
- Descriptions of my writing process and struggles, and characters, etc.
Thank you everyone for your suggestions, and if you have any more, feel free to let me know!
A quick side note, the photos I choose for the top of the post often don’t have much to do with the actual post– and that’s because I love photos of books and typewriters.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this post, I’ll be working on more! Thanks for reading, and have a great day!
Edited Jan. 2022
About The Author
Abby
Abby is a teenaged writer who loves using her words for Jesus, to seek and point out beauty in the ordinary. When she isn't writing, you can find her jamming on her guitar, which she fondly calls "Raymond Fender the First", sitting on porches, or reading.