TLDR: keep working on this book or dump the project entirely? (Skip to the plot)
I dug up an old file for a book I wrote during my junior year of high school. I used to write a lot, but it seems I have a sort of time limit on this stuff. I write it, like it for a week, then I hate the absolute shit out of it and want to burn it. So I kinda hate this book. Not as much as the others, as I totally want to pretend those never existed, while I do see SOME potential in this when I look at it. I did share it with many peers, and they all loved it, which I kinda assumed was because they'd say they loved anything I wrote to be nice. However I also shared it with an english teacher who was VERY harsh in terms of grading and not afraid at all to tear apart your work and give tons of honest criticism. The fact that she came up to me and told me she liked it makes me wonder if maybe I'm just being too harsh on myself, maybe this is a road block I have to get over.
Either way, I'm going to go ahead and consider myself too biased to judge the quality of this- So should I keep working or is it just hopelessly bad?
Plot:
Basically the plot centers around a haunted house, but it's a different take- it's from the point of view of the ghost. Her name is Sari right now, and I may or may not change that if I decide to continue with this. She is about 7 (May change the age by a year or two) and died in a house fire. During her life she was a victim of abuse at the hands of her mother, who was an addict. The story follows her as she deals with the painful memories, and copes with the idea of her own death. During that time several families move in and soon move out. By observing the lives of others, and eventually interacting with those in the home (Sometimes driving them away, sometimes seeking companionship) she learns and matures- her afterlife basically becomes a second shot at living and growing. Eventually she learns to let go of her past and be at peace, in the end leaving the house to exist among the stars.
A small sample (Remember I was in high school and don't judge me too hard if it sucks)
The last soft glow of
sunlight slipped beneath the horizon, and the air filled with the musical
cacophony of a thousand crickets calling out to one another. Open windows to warm homes created
spots of light throughout a calm neighborhood, a manmade galaxy to imitate the
stars appearing one by one in the sky.
One home, however, stood apart from the others, as it did not defy
darkness with manmade light; it welcomed the dark.
It hung at the farthest
reaches of the manmade stars, just barely trapped in a motionless orbit. Vines climbed along all sides of it,
and grew in number as time went.
Soon they would swallow it and the house would be torn from the gravity
of the other homes, to sink into the peaceful green depths of the forest.
The only live inhabitants
in the silent home were the spiders.
The spiders danced and wove their dream catcher webs along the corners
of the ceiling. As their legs
moved to a precise, instinctual rhythm, their dreams began to manifest in
silver threads which lined the ceilings.
They wove tirelessly only to realize in time there was nothing to be
caught in their dream catcher webs.
Sometimes the spiders
left their webs. Others starved
and their carcasses would be tossed aside by a faint breeze. The webs always remained, growing in
numbers, lining the home with silver, as if the dreams of a simple arachnid
could become ghosts.
The home was empty,
certainly, yet it filled its neighbors with unease. The children would gawk from time to time, dare each other
to sprint up to the front door, but none ever made it so close as to touch the
splintering wood or turn the frigid bronze knob. Halfway was as far as anyone would get, before the hair on
the back of their necks would stand so high, their heart would race so fast,
they would switch to basic animal instinct and flee from a terror they could
not see.
They would hardly hear
the laughter and mocking of their friends over their panicked breath. The taunting would barely sting
compared to the sting of their lungs or the ache from the repeated beating of
their heart, almost as if it had beat so hard they were now bruised.
Friends would chock it up
to being chicken, parents would call it an overactive imagination. Yet those who approached the home would
know. Despite having no evidence to prove it, despite seeing and hearing
nothing, despite having nothing but a feeling of pure terror to draw their
conclusion from, they knew with absolute certainty. Something was staring back.
The echo of a pulse still
reverberated in the silence, a seething glare was present without eyes. Feet paced but never touched ground,
never touched anything. Those who
had sensed this knew first that something existed in the nothingness, and
second, they knew a name, as if the pounding of a frantic heart functioned as
morse code- Sari.
Sari was only seven years
old when she died.
She lingered in her old
empty house with scorched walls in the kitchen and living room. But the scorch marks that haunted her
most lingered in the broom closet, where Sari would often sit and mourn,
because she knew someone ought to mourn for every dead, and if she were
forgotten, she’d just have to mourn herself.