First Experiences as a Writer

My first experiences as a writer come from writing in my journal.  I was always a very shy little girl who desperately wanted to escape from people and be alone in my room.  There I would get lost in my imagination, writing about those around me.  Looking back, I have always been a satirical writer: writing about people in my life and how they amused me.  I loved Harriet the Spy and emulated her writing technique.  I hid in my parents' closet and listened to their conversations, hid behind the couch and spied on my brothers while they played video games, and I often hid in my parent's bathtub and watched my neighbors out the bathroom window. Then I would retreat back to my bedroom and write, in ridiculous detail, everything that I saw and heard.  I wrote about my angry stepfather and my timid mother.  I feel terrible about it now, but I would mock her for being what I thought was a weak woman.  I wrote about the disgusting things my brothers would talk about and call them perverts.  Any twisted thing that I witnessed became ammo for my writing. 

This writing style has carried into my adult years as well.  Whenever I am in a situation where I feel like my quiet and scared little girl self, I start to write about the people around me.  This began full force when I started working in the restaurant business.  I was overwhelmed with big personalities who lived life entirely different than I ever had.  They partied, drank excessively, did drugs, were promiscuous, and cheated on their significant others all with no regard for anyone other than themselves.  I was shocked, and needless to say, my sheltered self was terrified.  I began writing about them in my server book. I renamed everyone in my stories as the celebrity they reminded me of.  Jude Law, painfully handsome but would cheat on his beautiful wife if had any opportunity, even the homely nanny.  Anna Nicole, my drunk-during-her shifts alcoholic boss who could stand to shower before her shifts.  Charlie Sheen (my other boss), bipolar manic psycho whom you didn't dare cross because he was always "winning".  The list goes on and on.  If anyone caught me, I was just jotting down a quick idea for homework, but in reality I was attacking these people that I worked with...mostly because I was terrified to be forced to have a real conversation with them.  It was much more fun to create images of them in my stories.  It was safer and way more fun.