i'm helping out at a creative writing workshop for uhhh i think 10-12s? 10-14s? idk. but that age range. and anyways
a) i forgot how fun this is
b) it's really hard not to like, re-write for them and stick to just "hey add descriptions here, change this grammar, really cool ideas!" bc i'm an adult and not trying to talk over/railroad these kids, but i'm just so excited for their ideas!!!
c) little boys write cool stuff like "what if we went to mars but it sucked so we left, but left behind all our technology and the technology rose up and created its own society and then went to war with us for abandoning them? what if transformers had 100x the war crimes? what if the earth blew up. what if we were the robots all along?"
d) little girls out here writing like "aunt melanie's skin was sloughing off the bones as her beloved dogs tore her apart, turning on her in blind animal instinct. the second she stopped providing food, she became food." and a lot of body horror and dark themes about group pacts and betrayals and ritualistic murder/sacrifices. like a lot
me, turning to the teacher who is also doing this: hey so, i'm personally really cool with the tone and direction these girls take, but is any of this? how you say... a red flag?
teacher: little girls have really rich inner lives to combat the way they're puppeted by society in real life. they'll learn to censor it out in a couple years, but it doesn't go away.
me, who was also a weird little girl who phased in and out of weirdness depending on social settings: nice.
