A High School Fantasy

Let me warn you - the following excerpt is bad. Really. It makes me cringe when I read it. And then I remember that I wrote it and I cringe some more, with a little embarrassed snicker thrown in. What can I say? I was in high school. I was crazy about fantasy, empowered women warriors, evil creatures and magic, and romances that always began with hate and ended in love. Wait, reading back over that sentence, I realize that I haven't changed all that much ... only I would phrase myself with more sophistication and subtlety these days. I was a tad heavy handed back then.



Wow. Shades of Lord of the Rings, much? And what man would even say something like "you should let men handle this situation"? She didn't notice the huge entourage accompanying the golden carriage? I won't even touch on the execution of the writing, except to say, Holy repetitions, Batman! All that aside, there are some cute ideas here, like the secret female bodyguard to the queen, and her knowledge of dark tongues. Also, I can't deny that the imaginative ideas flowed much more freely when I was less worried about trivialities like style and verisimilitude. Ah, teenagedom.