Fiction Writing: Discover Your MonkeyBoy

When I was in school, I never ran with the popular crowd. I never fit into any clique, really. I drifted between the artsy folk, the drama club members, and a few of the freaks who spent time between classes having a smoke out back.

I was always the type of kid who was a day late and a dollar short when it came to fads. I had my own hobbies that never seemed to fit with what others were doing. I wasn’t particularly athletic (although I was part of the varsity track team and tried out for basketball), I spent my time with my nose in a sketchbook.

I gave up the violin and guitar because I couldn’t stand the teasing of my peers when I carried the cases to school. (Little did I know that playing a guitar would one day be cool.) Relentless taunting brought on low self-esteem and made me quiet and reserved.

I guess if I were a kid today, I’d be considered a geek.

MonkeyBoy and the Forbidden Kingdom

One thing that set me apart from my peers was my imagination. I had plenty of it – and I still do. I saw the world differently.

To me, the woods near the playground were more than just a bunch of trees; it was a magical forest. Cartoons weren’t just entertainment, they were works of art. National Geographic and the Audubon magazine were more than just resources for book reports, they were full of stunning photographs waiting to be drawn in my sketchbook.

These things inspired me.

Jurgen Wolff posted Where Your Next Story is Hiding, and it made me dig deep and remember what moved me when I was younger.

Wolff mentioned that John Fusco (screenwriter of Young Guns and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmaron) was inspired to write The Forbidden Kingdom from a bedtime story he read to his son.

I think the Powers That Be were trying to tell me something when I found a little gem of a blog through a Twitter follower, Sandi Law of Geeked Off. Sandi wrote about what it was like to raise her son, a geek, who she affectionately calls “MonkeyBoy”.

At the end of her post, Sandi writes:

Find your kid’s inner geek and bring it out. You might be surprised at how much self confidence is gained by embracing ones geekiness.

MonkeyBoy’s limitless imagination made me think. My response to Sandi’s post was this:

I disagree on one point though; the thing isn’t to bring out the inner geek in your child, but to bring out the inner child in yourself. All of us still play games, read comics and watch cartoons, stuff we loved doing as children. What makes us geeks (gah…and you didn’t hear that admission from me!) is that we never let go of being a kid. We’ve retained our imagination and creativity. The only difference is that the toys have gotten bigger and more expensive.

Find Your Inner Child Again

I hate to use the term “inner child”. I think it’s been horribly overused by one too many new-agers, but there’s no other way to describe embracing everything that made childhood so wonderful. We all have a place deep inside where we’ve locked away what made us happy and what gave us inspiration.

Some of us still have the key to that door and we visit it occasionally, like a trip into the attic. Others lock that door and never go back again.

There’s no reason why you can’t go back. Now that you’re older and have the means and ways to make your dreams happen, it’s that much sweeter. Even if you don’t have the means to make your dreams happen, you can live them out through the characters that you create.

Take a moment to remember what inspired you as a child. You’ll be surprised at how quickly the ideas come to you once you open the dusty old chest in the corner of your mental attic.

Clean off the cobwebs and toss the old teddy bear in the washer. Call your imaginary friend and get caught up on old times.

Your best stories are right inside of you.

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