My writing style has changed drastically in the last five or six years and recently I rediscovered some of my old stuff. Mostly, it made me want to puke. Most of it was complete and utter garbage--what was I thinking? At the time I was happy with it for the most part, I even submitted one. [Thank God, it didn't get published, I'd have to change my name.] So it made me wonder, am I going to hate the things I'm writing now ten years down the line? I think it's fair to assume that my writing style will continue to develop and possibly change over time, being a young pup and all. Has this happened to you?
Absolutely! My mom is a saver. Unbeknownst to me she had saved all kinds of folders from when I was in high school. Things I had written. Random pieces of homework. Most of what I wrote in those years was utterly, devastatingly, EMO to read with adult eyes (I'm 39). But.... There were a few pieces, while horribly executed, which did contain a good core idea worth revisiting.
I don't like the stuff I wrote a year ago. It wasn't clear at times and was just plain bad. I definitely think I will be a better writer a few years from now. So, I'm sure I will look back at my writings from today with an air of disapproval.
I think we've all looked back on something we wrote a long time ago and gone, "Oh my, I need to burn this and bury the ashes," at some point or annother. That's a natural byproduct of improvement. Eventually, however, I think we hit a point at which we cease to improve as drastically as before, such that we can look back on our work from that point on and say, "You know, that was pretty darn good. I don't think I need to burn this." We never stop improving, or at least we shouldn't, but at some point we reach "good". From there on it's all about "better".
Ironic that this was asked because today on the light rail home, I read my very first attempt at the major story I am writing now and was horrified. I think I said out loud how awful it was. But then I looked over my later versions and saw the progress. I had come a long way. Encouraging, to say the least. So Phantasmal, correct!
I love reading over my old writing. True, it's mostly horrible, but that's not the point. Point is, back in those days, I LOVED writing. At home, I hogged the computer so I could use Microsoft Word. At school, when I wasn't working, I was writing. I had dreams about my characters. I even once fooled myself into thinking, just for a moment, that I was actually in one of my stories. These were back in the days when I didn't care about how good it was. If I had fun writing it, that automatically made it good in my eyes. But now that I'm getting better at it, I'm slowly becoming less interested. It isn't nearly as fun as it used to be. For that reason, if my level of skill is inversely proportional to the amount of fun I have with writing, then I wish I were the worst writer on the planet.
I've nearly stopped showing my writing to family altogether, because they save everything. As for reaching a point where I can look back on old work and say, "Maybe I don't have to burn this," I hope that never happens to me.
Taking pride in your past accomplishments does not presuppose that you're perfectly content with where you're at and have given up on improving any further. Be proud of what you write when you get it right, and then think of how you'll write something even better the next time.
When I first joined this forum I knew next to nothing about writing and I posted a piece for review anyway. I posted the piece so fast that when Cogito template greeted me in the new member forum with his "don't post work yet" advice, it was already too late. Yeah, I was one of those guys. Fortunately I did some reviews first so my thread never closed, but I'm not so thrilled about my decision to post such a raw piece of writing that's still floating around in the depths of the review forum somewhere.
