Old Shame?

While translating my story (thank god, I am almost done!) I looked up one of my old stories to see how I divvied up paragraphs - the story was copied and pasted on a webpage without a clear sense of paragraph break, so I had to blindly break paragraphs where it seemed appropriate.

Which led to reading my old high school stories all over again.

Oh dear god.

Why is everyone wildly expressing their feelings every time they have a sort of emotion?

I was also obsessed with withdrawn protagonists who had trouble opening up to family members or friends or potential significant others (what does this say about me?)

Because I feel like sharing, this is an excerpt from one of my "love stories":

*Names were changed due to embarrassment factor. Never give your characters stupid "fantasy" names.

“Oh, god,” Alice nearly collapsed on the chair beside his bed. She sat in silence, her large eyes showing horror and pain as she scanned his broken body. She had already cried a river hours ago. Now, when she thought she could handle it, tears began to well up her eyes again.

“You all right? How’s your ankle?” Bob asked softly. Alice stared in surprise.

“Me? How can you ask if I’m okay, look at yourself!” she exclaimed. “You were run over by that truck! You were dying, and your limbs are broken! How can you ask how I am?” More tears welled up, but they stayed there and didn't trickle down. “What about you, Bob, are you okay? Charlie told me you only woke up just now. It hurts a lot, doesn't it? It’s my fault, it’s my fault,” her words gushed out all at once as she buried her head at the foot of the bed.

Blargh. There's also this, I guess:

She actually loved him. She had loved him all along. When Bob was in the emergency room and had slipped into a dangerous coma, she’d realized that she couldn't live without Bob, even as a friend. When she visited him in the ward, when she helped him out with the rehab, she considered her actions as a repayment to him, but she knew that she was happy to be with him. It had taken several weeks to figure out the simple fact that she wanted to see him.

  

Ugh so cliche.

Yes, this is a love story; where Alice rejects Bob, Bob gets hit by a truck trying to save Alice, and then they get together. SOOOOO ROMANTIC.

But somehow... my older stories seem better-written, as stupidly melodramatic as they may be. Somehow they had raw emotions, the characters seemed more alive, more relatable. My characters in my college writing sounded rather flat and one-dimensional.

My writing muse has still not come back, and I don't know how to retrieve it.

Come back home, you bastard!