- Joined
- Apr 24, 2009
- Messages
- 6,902
- Reaction score
- 3,783
- Age
- 52
- Location
- MA
- Website
- www.rebeccaburrell.com
Because I can't. *shudder* I opened an abandoned WIP the other day, and wanted to burn it on sight. Unusual or not?
Can you read your early writing without cringing?
- Thread starter raburrell
- Start date
- Status
I can read mine without cringing much. Not because it's any good, but because I take satisfaction in seeing how much I've improved. Sometimes I do end up rolling my eyes and wondering how I ever thought something was a good idea, lol.
What makes me cringe and wish I could throw my computer out a window is when I realize I've screwed up something recent.
What makes me cringe and wish I could throw my computer out a window is when I realize I've screwed up something recent.
I cringe only for as long as it takes to cannibalize it and make it into something worth reading. No decent idea or sentence should go to waste, even if it's jammed in the middle of garbage.
No. God it's awful.
I read my trunk novel - not even the first draft, which was handwritten - but the one I have on my computer. The 'after loads of rewrites' version and I cringed so hard my liver turned inside out.
I read my trunk novel - not even the first draft, which was handwritten - but the one I have on my computer. The 'after loads of rewrites' version and I cringed so hard my liver turned inside out.
When I mentioned that the anthology lying on the floor contained my first published story, my boyfriend bolted towards it with a cry of, "Let's have a looksy!"
The ensuing cry of, "Noooooooo!" was suitably hammy, I think.
The ensuing cry of, "Noooooooo!" was suitably hammy, I think.
Depends how early you're talking. If i find something i wrote when i was a wee one i don't cringe, i chuckle. If i read something i wrote anywhere between 6 months to 12 years ago i cringe. A couple months back i sold a short story i wrote a year ago (after it'd been considered by this mag for just under 4 months) and almost asked the editor if i could withdraw it, because i cringed so much when i came back to reading it.
And i know in a year or two i'll read stuff i've written just now and cringe.
All part of the process, i guess.
And i know in a year or two i'll read stuff i've written just now and cringe.
All part of the process, i guess.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2006
- Messages
- 20,770
- Reaction score
- 2,726
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
- Website
- www.gallagherwitt.com
Oh God, I can't even read the fantasy novel I finished less than a year ago. I shudder to think of how sick the first two drafts (written in 2001 and 2004) would make me.
I was actually going through some old notes last night from some previous WIP's. They made me throw up in my mouth a little.
*goes off to console myself with my current WIP...and Colin Farrell...*
I was actually going through some old notes last night from some previous WIP's. They made me throw up in my mouth a little.
*goes off to console myself with my current WIP...and Colin Farrell...*
I can tolerate it, cringing only upon occasion. Plus, I enjoy a good laugh, and that's always to be found. 
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2009
- Messages
- 725
- Reaction score
- 91
Depends how old it is. 10 years? God no.
5 years? Not so bad.
The piece I'm working on right now actually includes a first 20-30~ pages that I wrote something like 4 years ago. It's not the strongest part of the piece, but it isn't bad either, it was good enough to inspire me to continue it.
5 years? Not so bad.
The piece I'm working on right now actually includes a first 20-30~ pages that I wrote something like 4 years ago. It's not the strongest part of the piece, but it isn't bad either, it was good enough to inspire me to continue it.
*Gag* When I was a teen through my early twenties, I wrote the most atrocious navel-gazing slosh and I thought it was LIKE OMG SOOO DEEP. God, I'm glad I never showed it to anybody. But I was convinced that it would all be "discovered" some day and I'd become one of the literary greats.
Lolz. So not gonna happen. Not with that stuff, anyway.
Lolz. So not gonna happen. Not with that stuff, anyway.
I don't cringe over anything that's not in print, because anything not in print can still be changed. When I look back on some of my oldest writing, I just kind of laugh at it. If I wanted to and I felt it was worth it, I could upgrade it. So what's there to cringe about? Now if I had a printed story that really sucked (which I don't think I do, but readers can decide for themselves), then I would definitely cringe and look forward to it going out of print.
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2006
- Messages
- 3,348
- Reaction score
- 854
- Age
- 67
- Location
- Ontario, Canader
- Website
- www.chumpletwrites.blogspot.com
shewrites
Registered
I'm such a noob that I fear what I'm writing right now is what I will look back and cringe over 5 years from now. I have nothing more to look back on, other than college papers, and, in my defense, many of those were written mid-hangover.
I can read some. They're BAD, but it's a nice way to look at how far I've come. I still have the short stories I wrote in third and fourth grade, and I have some of my earlier novels from middle school on a floppy disk somewhere. It's important to remind yourself that there was indeed a time when you thought you'd be the next <insert author's name here> and see that such things are foolish.
I was actually disappointed when I went back and read some of the stories I wrote about 4 years ago - not because they were terrible, but because they were halfway decent. There were mistakes, sure, but overall they were okay. I had so been hoping to laugh at myself and say "but at least I've grown since then". I mean, have I really gone nowhere in 4 years? But then I read some of my work from 8 years ago, and good Lord...that's where I was hiding all the terrible! Maybe I got it all out of my system? Yes, that's what I'll keep telling myself...
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2008
- Messages
- 705
- Reaction score
- 166
- Location
- 2nd Star To the Right
- Website
- inkstaind-stars.livejournal.com
My older work is better than my current work. I read the stuff I wrote as a teen and think, "Why can't I do this now?"
I've been thinking about this question since I posted, and the following occurs to me:
1. When I teach college comp classes or lit classes (which always have analytic papers) I almost always bring in my own writing to show to students--old stuff, and new stuff. I can talk about the problems really candidly, and not risky hurting anyone's feelings.
When I was still working on my dissertation, I would bring in bits of it, to show students how to revise, or at least, how I did it, and I'd bring in commented versions from the editors of publishers where I'd submitted things for publication, too, so students could see how different readers read differently.
So I can tell, at least intellectually, that yes, I am learning, and yes, still, even now, I am improving.
2. The fact that I look at my own writing, even the published stuff, and see ways to *make it better* is, in the long view a good thing.
No, really--why are you laughing like that?
1. When I teach college comp classes or lit classes (which always have analytic papers) I almost always bring in my own writing to show to students--old stuff, and new stuff. I can talk about the problems really candidly, and not risky hurting anyone's feelings.
When I was still working on my dissertation, I would bring in bits of it, to show students how to revise, or at least, how I did it, and I'd bring in commented versions from the editors of publishers where I'd submitted things for publication, too, so students could see how different readers read differently.
So I can tell, at least intellectually, that yes, I am learning, and yes, still, even now, I am improving.
2. The fact that I look at my own writing, even the published stuff, and see ways to *make it better* is, in the long view a good thing.
No, really--why are you laughing like that?
Last edited by a moderator:
Heheh--yeah, i'm in the process of writing right now and cringing at every sentence once i finish it. I'll pretend it's the flu that's making my writing even worse than usual. Yes, the flu, that's it...
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2007
- Messages
- 487
- Reaction score
- 53
- Location
- Oregon
- Website
- writersblocks.blogspot.com
No, I cannot read it and will destroy any evidence of my early work that is found (especially if it happens to be the poetry and ST:TNG fan fiction that I wrote when I was 12).
- Status