Change In Our Writing

I am sure that many of you, at least myself, have been writing for several long years now. We can’t help it. We are drawn to the craft like a parched throat to water. We don’t just want it, we need it.

After writing for several years, many of us have collected our past writings here and there, kept for reference or memories. They might be in forgotten word documents on your computers, a tossed aside flash drive, jammed in a file folder in you desk somewhere, or any number of indiscreet places where you may stumble across them at a time and have the urge to read them.

And when we do, we see change.

We are using the same words, same symbols, punctuation marks, everything. But it is different somehow. Our voice was less mature then, a different genre perhaps, or we can plainly say that back then we were absolutely horrible.

I came across an old notebook of mine while looking up some of my older work. I wanted something to draw off of when I wrote this piece. In this notebook was the following line, “Fear spread over his face like an angry squid.”

I’ll assume you’ve stopped laughing now but I remember that, at the age of eight or ten when I wrote this, I was beyond proud of that line. I believe I showed it to all of my fellow young writers, boasting about one line that I think showed my true talent as a young author. Well, naturally, I have now come to realize just how blatantly horrid that line is. But I won’t shove it aside, I am going to keep it.

When we review things we have written before we can see just where our faults were and how we changed them. It is as if we are reading and critiquing some one else’s work because, face it, weren’t we different people ten, fifteen, twenty years ago?

Why is this important? Because you and I are still making the same mistakes. It’s true. Throughout our creative writing there are holes, rips, tears, and stains. We just don’t see it as well as we see it in our earlier voice, because this is our current voice.

I am going to ask you all to do a little homework. Go through some of your older pieces, and find something that stands out to you, something you would never imagine doing now. Be it a cliché, over-use of a word, simile bombardment, whatever you wish. Make note of it. Now go through your own writing and see how much it has changed, and find something that perhaps you would like to see change in another few years at the pen.

Your writing will always change. It will never remain the same, and you should not be afraid of this. You should embrace it.  Thriller author Lincoln Child (Terminal Freeze, Cemetery Dance) will admit that even he has this several hundred page fantasy novel written decades ago under lock and key.

Don’t see your past writings as something to disgust but something to learn from. Realize that you are still making some of the same mistakes. I use too many commas (if you haven’t noticed already), and I did when I was younger. It might change. Might. Only time will tell.

So go find some change, tackle it to the ground, smother it in a heart-felt embrace, and learn from it. Let the writing of the past impact the present and future.

And remember always to never stop writing.

Written By special guest Blogger BECCA.