I was homeschooled for my whole life, so I never sat on a lunch table at school, but that doesn’t stop me from imagining who I would sit with if I could sit with anyone I liked. For this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, I’m listing the top ten characters I would love to have sitting at my table. Apparently, according to this list, I like funny characters. Also, according to this list, I have no idea what a real school is like.

1. Leo Valdez

The Lost Hero

This guy is fun in a box. He can make anything out of pipe cleaners and a rubber band, loves to joke around, and is a little hyperactive. Or a lot hyperactive. He’d be a bit of a walking fire hazard, but at least you wouldn’t have to worry about cold food. Lunch certainly wouldn’t get boring with Leo around to keep things lively.

2. Kat Bishop

Heist Society

Kat is fun and daring and would probably be the one to walk across the roof of the school for a dare. What’s more, she’d get away with it too. Not to mention that she would think up awesome pranks to play on people.

3. Gansey

Raven Boys

Gansey is pretty smart, and he really likes magic. After all, he’s been tracking down a source of magic for months now, so we have a fair bit in common. Plus he knows someone with a family of psychics so we’d probably get advanced warning of pop quizzes.

4. Otto Malpense

H.I.V.E

No table would be complete without its resident nerd. Or in this case a resident genius. Otto has a brain like a computer, so if anyone could help out with last minute homework, it would be him. Or he could hack into the school computer system and randomly play YouTube videos on the projector during a boring lesson.

5. Wally

A Little Bush Maid

I’d have Wally on my table purely for the fun factor. I can only remember a handful of times when Wally has actually been serious. He would make any lunchtime a bundle of laughs. 

6.James

Ballad

James is another character I’d pick purely because of his sense of humour. And his kilt. I could imagine him turning up to school wearing his kilt just for a laugh, or playing his bagpipes in the lunch room to get a rise out of the other students.

7. Sadie Kane

Kane Chronicles

Nobody messes with Sadie. She’s got a magic wand, combat boots, and a cat called Muffin who just so happens to turn into an Egyptian goddess. That’s a pretty cool combination. All in all, she would just be an epic person to spend time with.

8. Bartimaeus

The Amulet of Samarkand

Every good lunch table needs a shape changing spirit from another world. Bartimaeus is good at impersonating people, which would be very useful for some of Kat’s pranks. He also happens to be useful in case of danger, enemies, or attacks of complete and utter boredom.

9. The Hatter

Looking Glass Wars

Ok, so the Hatter isn’t really school-aged, and he doesn’t even appear school-aged like Bartimaeus can, but I had to pick him because of his truly awesome hat and his fighting skills. No bully is going to pick on me and my friends when you have a soldier wielding a weaponized hat to protect you.

10. Kiki Strike

Inside the Shadow City

Kiki Strike has a bit of everything. She’s got the brains, the research skills, a spirit of adventure, and a few nice fighting moves. She might not eat much lunch, being allergic to pretty much every type of food, but the after school adventures would be epic.

Who would sit on your lunch table at school?

Have you ever looked back at your very first piece of writing and thought ‘Wow, this is terrible’? Today, I dug out the very first draft of my very first novel, written over six and a half years ago, and had a bit of a read. It was truly a hilarious and humbling experience. I alternated between laughing at the ridiculousness of it, and grimacing at how horrible it is. In today’s post I thought, for a bit of fun, I would share four of my favourite excerpts from this book that doesn’t even have a name so that you too can have a laugh at its awfulness.

1) After breakfast the next morning I started to explore the house. It was an enormous house with windows that came out in unexpected places and strangely shaped rooms. The rooms were crammed with all kinds of paraphernalia. There were old weapons of all kinds hanging on the walls. One room was stuffed with books of every kind. I even found an old martial arts uniform.

“Who’s were all these things,” I asked Grandma.

“They were mine. I used to teach at the Ninja Academy.”

“Were you a Ninja then?”

“A Kunoichi to be exact.”

“What is a Kun…Kunoychee?”

“Kunoichi are female ninjas. They are trained differently to male ninjas. Kunoichi focus more on disguise.”

 Bear in mind that this is a fantasy novel, not a novel about ninjas. I think at this point I got intensely interested in ninjas and thought it would be a great idea to throw them into my book somewhere. I even did a heap of research on ninjas so I could pretend to be like a real writer. I’m sure I thought I was being very original. As it turned out, randomly adding ninjas is not the best idea.

2) This from one page later: I got up one morning and popped into her room to say good morning as I usually did. She normally turned as I came in but this morning she didn’t move. I had a bad feeling. I came closer.

“Grandma. Grandma?”

She wasn’t breathing. All of a sudden I realised she was dead.

According to young me, grandmothers have a tendency to die at the drop of a hat. This book may or may not have a few pacing issues in the plot.

3) “What kind of spiders made those webs?” I asked idly. To my surprise none of my friends answered. I turned to find their places empty. “Granite!” I called. “Flint! Come out you guys. This isn’t funny.” No one but the echoes answered me. The hair on the back of my neck prickled and I turned a full circle, drawing my sword as I did so.

My eyes were drawn back to the huge webs on the ceiling. Again the question popped up unbidden. What kind of spiders made those? My eyes widened with shock as I realised the answer to my question. Giant spiders made those webs. And what do giant spiders like to eat? Anything they can catch. Which meant that my friends were most likely to be on tonight’s menu.

A group of travelling dwarves being captured by giant spiders and rescued by their companion. Where have I heard that one before? Oh wait, it might be inspired by a little read book called ‘The Hobbit’. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Apparently that giant spider idea was a favourite of mine, because it stuck around in every single draft of this book.

And there we have it. Four terrible excerpts from a truly horrible novel. And that’s only from the first part of the book. Still, reading through this first draft does give me hope for my writing skills. I’m certainly much better than I was back then! And it is great for a bit of a laugh. Hopefully you had as much fun reading these excerpts as I did.

Which was your favourite excerpt? Do you still have a copy of your first piece of writing? Why not share an excerpt in the comments? I’d love to see it.