I've been thinking about this a lot recently. There was something really special about being able to write with such reckless abandon when I was 10 years old.
Was it good? God no, of course not. The story didn't make sense, the writing was all over the place, I didn't understand sentence structures, characters were not consistent, there were unexplained loopholes and impossible, not-realistic things everywhere...
But I was writing completely unrestrained by knowledge, rules, and even the idea of what "good" writing was. I didn't worry about not finishing anything, I just wreaked havoc in whatever I felt like doing, patted myself on the back and moved on without cleaning up.
So it wasn't good writing. Not in any measure that we would judge writing by, but it was inspired. It was wild and free and absolutely magical in a way that only someone unburdened by wisdom and convention could actually write.
And I don't know, I just find that really poignant.
I also remember being 13 and posting my writing on Figment back when it was a thing. I got a very kind, and well-articulated review talking about how my plot was completely unrealistic, how this would never ever happen in real life and that I needed to do more research to make a coherent story. And they were right, it was a very valid piece of criticism. I'd probably say the same thing myself at this point.
But I also kind of want to go back in time and grab this person by the arms and say "that's not the point"! This was a story that I wrote with my friend as we giggled about all of these crazy ideas and how they were so freaking cool and we actually wrote it and it turned out even cooler that we thought.
The point was never to make it a good story, or a coherent plot, or have it be grounded in realism or even for it to be someone else to read. The point was for it to exist, for us to go absolutely wild with unrealistic ideas that we would never actually write now that we are much more experienced and knowledgeable writers, because we could and because it was fun.
I have so much more to say, but this is getting long so I'll wrap it up with this: I am so thankful that I got to experience this as a beginner writer without ever receiving criticism (constructive or not), or looking into any writing advice because I feel like it was such an important part of my development as a writer.
