Juvenilia

Here, take a look at this:

Twenty minutes later, all of them sat in Lennox's office, listening to Yearling's conversation. "Good God," Alex Simpson, another asassin [sic] (specializing in bombs and explosives), muttered softly to no one in particular. He raised his voice and added, "We're in trouble now."

"You got that right," Maxwell Atarch, son of John (and yet another asassin [sic]), said. "What are we going to do?"

They looked around at each other, all of their glances eventually meeting Lennox's long, sad face. "In the words of John Atarch, let's 'Take care of it'."

"How?" Maxwell said.

"Easy." Lennox paused. "Brimley, you said that everyone [sic] of your men covers the habits of all the officers in the department. Right?"

"Yes, sir."

Lennox cleared his throat and continued. "Does this Morrison guy have any habit that could be used to our advantage?"

"As a matter of fact, I was just looking at him the other day. It seems that every morning for breakfast, at around 6:30 A.M., he drives down to this bed-and-breakfast around the corner. 'Bertha's,' I think it's called. He stays there for about an hour and one-half. [?]"

"Good." He paused again. "Simpson. While he's down there, you attach some sort of bomb to his car. Ka-boom. He's take care of. Now, Wilson and Maxwell. Get a black Mazda 626. Pick up the girl, and take care of her. Bingo. Operation Complete. Mission Accomplished."

They were silent for a moment. Simpson broke the silence by clearing his throat noisily. "Very good, sir," he said. They got up and left the room, leaving Lennox to think.

Yikes, huh? Ooh, check this, this is from about sixteen pages later:

Maxwell's body was instantly coated with a cold sweat. He gulped and looked at Brimley. "Uh...hi...uh, Steve," he stammered. "How are you?"

"Okay, I guess," Brimley said. "What are you doing?"

"Uh..just visiting Lennox," Maxwell said.

"Oh, is he in?" Brimley asked. He glanced down at his watch. "He usually goes to breakfast around this time." He nodded toward the door. "I guess I'll go see him," he said, and began to walk toward the door.

Maxwell knew that he couldn't let Brimley into Lennox's office. He also knew the Brimley was a large man -- 6'11", 200 pounds [!!!] -- and the way only way to successfully attack a man of that size would be to catch him off his guard.

Suddenly, with all the force and power he could muster, Maxwell lunged forward, hands outstretched. Brimley was completely surprised, and he flew back against the wall with little resistance, and Maxwell darted past him down the hall. Brimley quickly followed.

Lennox's office was about fourty [sic] yards from the exit, and Maxwell knew the would have to run faster than he had ever ran [sic] before to stay ahead of Brimley.

As the door came into Maxwell's field of vision, he began to hear Brimley's thundering footfalls behind him. Through the glass door, he could see Matthews' [sic] station wagon, and --

The glass, Maxwell though, and he instantly got an idea.

Maxwell went flying through the glass doors at top speed. He spun and saw Brimley racing toward him, his right arm outstretched toward Maxwell.

Grasping the side of the still-swinging door, Maxwell flung it shut.

The move was so quick and unexpected that Brimley had no time to defend himself; instead, his hand went through the upper glass of the door, and Brimley felt shards glass stick into his hand, and all the tendons in his elbow exploding. He screamed in pain and crumpled up against the door as Maxwell bounded down the steps toward the station wagon.

Grimacing from the pain in his arm, Brimley got to his feet and followed.

Well, that's just scary bad, isn't it?

So who wrote this dreck? I mean, it reads like the ultraviolent ramblings of a deeply troubled seventh grader.

It was. I wrote it, in seventh grade.

I wrote it by hand, on notebook paper I probably should have been using for school, and bound the whole thing in a purple folder with the title written in black block letters: THE ASASSIN. Yes, that's spelled incorrectly. As it is every time it's used in the first three chapters -- apparently, someone handed me a dictionary at some point between pages twelve and thirteen.

And it's atrocious. I mean, just awful, as you can plainly see. A socially inept twelve-year-old trying to write a love story (fittingly, all of the "love" stuff happens either before the story begins or between chapters) while at the same time writing a story about mafia hitmen when he understood nothing about violence and didn't know how the mob worked.

It's so, so deliciously bad. And yet I still have it -- I still keep it in its purple folder, with the red construction-paper title page beneath it and even a mock copyright page.

I gave it to my mom for a Christmas present one year, even though I had to do so apologetically. Yeah, get this, you'll never believe this: it wasn't finished. In fact, it's still not finished.

But my novel-in-progress ("More like novel-in-consideration," the voice in my head taunts me) is now titled Yet Another Assassin. 'Cause I honestly can't believe I wrote a phrase that...bad.