One of the characters in the book I'm writing decided to write a sonnet. Which means, I have to write a sonnet. I haven't done that since high-school, and out of curiosity, I headed to the Archives*

Eventually, I found my sonnet, in my poetry binder.** My teacher had generously given it an A. I suppose that's because I followed the proper rhyme pattern and pentameter. The fact that it was stupid apparently didn't figure into the equation.

 

Other treasures I found:

• A radio script I wrote for a contest in middle school. (non winning)
• A picture book I wrote for a contest in middle school. (non winning)
• My elementary school diary (the complete week of entries I made)
• Various beginnings of stories about genies, time travel (with stagecoaches), school hi-jinks, ghosts, death, murder, and some lame story that seems to be all about a kid who didn't want to cook dinner for his family. Not sure where I was going with that one.
• A very funny description of an unsanctioned subversive school club, called "The Writers Bloc" whose mission was to use writing to achive chaos. (not real, but it should have been!)
• Some excellent examples of bad writing. "She picked up her suitcase and transported it to the bedroom." Seriously? Transported? And who gives a crap about her suitcase anyway?
• An OUTLINE for my very best story from high-school, the one I'd come up with an awesome ending for, but can no longer remember. Outline was very detailed, and only missing one thing. The ending. I now realise it was also missing a little thing called plot. 

Digging through all this awesomeness kept me entertained late into the night and I'd like to think that as ancient as it may be, all those efforts can still count towards my 10,000 hours to creative breakthrough.


*Two boxes of notebooks, folders and binders that I have transported through 7 changes of address.
**Yes, it is an actual binder. Yes, it is alphabetized. Yes, those are the two most impressive features of the poetry binder. The actual poems pale in comparison.