Life Experiences

Like anyone, I've often contemplated, or even tried to write a story. And like anyone, it usually has never reached paper, or past the first chapter. As a child I read nothing but books like Narnia, Harry Potter, Swallows and Amazons and of course, anything Roald Dahl. One of my all time favourites is The Faraway Tree series, by Enid Blyton, and I must admit, I was a big R. L. Stine junkie during the 4th - 6th grades. So naturally, I find that there is absolutely nothing of interest in my own life that could possibly teach anyone, anything.

But I guess, I'll try.

In my short life there are not too many things that I am exceptionally proud of, except the way I spent my childhood summers, and I think that those times with my cousins, running wild and free like kids should, shaped me more as a person than anything else. My experiences taught me to appreciate people around me, nature, and the beauty of life. If I could share any of my life experiences, it would be those. I would hope that my audience would learn the importance of the small things, family and not being so hard on yourself. Although this is a cliché: Stop to smell the roses!

Most of the characters in my novel would be closely based on myself, my brother and my cousins. 

• Myself, the only girl, naive and young but awfully eager to prove herself as tough as the others.
• Naoki, my brother, my sidekick, who was always far too gullible
• Shinichi, my best-friend-cousin all in one.
• Takuya, my eldest cousin, the one person I admired  as a child. I still look up to him, and he is still my hero. 
• Takuya's younger brother Takahiro. We called him "the Evil One". Pretty self-explanatory.

The genre would probably be along the lines of a memoir, perhaps similar to the style of To Kill a Mockingbird. The plot would follow my fondest childhood memories of running away from stray dogs, catching enormous Japanese beetles, gathering live shellfish for breakfast, catching fish on my grandmother's farm and cooking them for dinner. I would always be the littlest lagging behind, but always somehow managing to squeeze my way through. The climax of the story, would be when my eldest cousin was attacked by a dog, and the story would slowly die down, once I returned to Canada.