Almost everything that I wrote more than fifteen years ago no longer exists. The box containing my old notebooks and any school assignments I’d deemed worth saving disappeared during a cross country move. The world is probably a better place because of this.
A few things do survive—certain papers or stories that for one reason or another were transcribed to computer and managed to survive the steady upgrade of computers over the years. When I read these few survivors I cringe.
It’s not that my writing was bad, it was just…. It was unpolished, adjective-heavy, repetitive, sparse on meaningful description, and plot laden. It was young.
But—and this is important—it was full of ideas, and it was full of excitement.
As an adult, I’m better at taking a random idea—i.e., a writing prompt—and with time and patience working that into something useful. I’m better at revising a raw rough draft and molding it into something polished. But what I’m missing now, what those early books were full of, were ideas that sprung completely from my own head—ideas that I was passionate about developing.
Sure, some of those ideas have hung around. The ones I spent more time trying to tame were repeated enough that they are at least partially committed to memory. But when I think back to the ideas I lost, I find myself wishing that I was able to revisit some of the crazier ideas with the honed skills I have now.
Do you still have the stories, notebooks or ideas you came up with in your past? How far back? Do you find them helpful, or do they just make you cringe?
I’d love to hear your answers in the comments—or pop over to the Today’s Author Forum and talk about it with other writers.
Where Is My Spot? 