Hello, friends! Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, a blog hop created by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by Joylene Nowell Butler, Louise Barbour, and Tyrean Martinson. Are you a writer? Do you feel insecure? Well, then this is the support group for you! Click here to learn more and to see a list of participating blogs.
I am not the same person I was 20 years ago. In some respects, I’m sickened to think of the person I was 20 years ago. My outlook on life and on the world has completely changed. I left my church, I switched political parties, I came out of the closet, I lost a lot of friends, I went no contact with my family… it’s been a rough 20 years. It was also about 20 years ago that I began my writing journey.
Which ties in nicely with this month’s question. Each month, IWSG asks us an optional question, and this month’s question is:
Is there a story or book you’ve written you want to/wish you could go back and change?
Oh yes. Very much yes. When I think about my writing from 20 years ago, I’m sickened by some of the things I wrote. Fortunately for me, very little of that old writing was published, and even less of it is still out there on the Internet today.
But while I’m glad that those old stories aren’t out there to be seen, I do not regret writing them. You see, one of the magical things about writing is that it reveals to you who you really are and what you really believe. I was raised to believe certain things. I thought I knew who I was and what my place in the world was supposed to be. But whenever I tried to express those beliefs in a story, the story felt… disingenuous. Halfhearted. Unconvincing, even to me.
Writing can reveal deep, personal truths to you. Sometimes it will reveal truths that you’re not prepared to deal with just yet. And you don’t have to be super introspective or meditative about your writing process for this to happen. It could be as simple as thinking “Huh, my protagonist seems like a hypocrite,” or “Huh, my antagonist raises some really good points.” (Or maybe—I don’t know, purely hypothetical example—that Sci-Fi utopia you’re working on keeps sounding like a dystopia, no matter what you do). That could be the first sign that your own writing is trying to teach you something about yourself.
I suspect a lot of older, more seasoned writers already know what I’m talking about in this post. As for any new, younger writers who might be reading this, keep an open mind. Pay attention to what your own writing is trying to tell you. If you do, the act of writing may change you.
i-love-space.com 
HI,
I wouldn’t be sickened. Every writer starts out writing bad stuff. You ‘ve learned, probably took writing classes and your inexperience turned into experience. If you had not started from where you were, you would not be where you are now.
Shalom shalom
Have a lovely month of February.
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“Sickened” may have been too strong a word. And you’re right, I did learn, both about writing and about life, and I got better. Still, I am really glad those early writings are not out there for anybody to see.
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If it’s sounding like a dystopia, might need to run with that concept.
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Maybe so. Both utopias and dystopias can be fun to write. It’s just a little disconcerting when you think you’re writing one and accidentally end up writing the other.
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I definitely know what you mean. When I look back on my younger years I see characteristics and beliefs I held that I today can’t believe that I had or held and would not want to repeat those years for those reasons.
It’s a little different when I look back on my writing from those years, but only a little: I want to burn those stories. They were that bad. Those stories are buried away somewhere in my house or at my parents’ house and they can stay buried. One good thing though is that those stories show how far I’ve progressed.
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That’s a good point. I may not like where I started, but I am proud of how far I’ve come.
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I actually consider myself lucky that I never tried to publish anything when I was younger. If I had and had been successful, I’m pretty sure I’d be mortified by it today. So I definitely know what you mean. (Although thankfully, I never had to go through the types of changes you list. Sounds awful.)
It does raise the question of how I might feel about my writing in years to come. But I find just being aware of that possibility makes me a little more measured, a little more restrained than I might otherwise be. That and I’m getting of an age where there’s not that many decades left, so the time for any future drastic changes is reduced.
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I ask myself the same question sometimes. But at the same time, I don’t find myself disagreeing with my own writing as much as I used to, which I take as a sign that the period of dramatic changes in my life is probably behind me.
By the way, I recall debating some of my old religious beliefs with you many, many years ago. I want to thank you for that. You helped me a lot, even if, at the time, I was not super happy about it.
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Wow, thanks for letting me know. I recall you mentioning early on you were religious, but not the debates. Hope I was respectful, but glad it helped.
I rarely argue against religious belief anymore, and when I do, it’s usually against fundamentalism. But even discussing religion as a social force has landed me in trouble at times.
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You were 100% kind and respectful. No need to worry about that!
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Thanks for stopping by my blog and sorry for the late visit. I agree people do change as they get older. Sometimes they become completely different people and sometimes they just get a better understanding of who they always were. For me, religion and faith are not the same thing, but regardless I think people put too much enphasis on how other people react to what they believe. I can totally see that being a conflict in what you write as a younger person compared to an older person who’s stopped caring about what other people think. Or I could be missing the point altogether. In any case, I hope you feel 100% comfortable in what you are writing now, even if I or someone else isn’t fully on board. Someone out there will be. I like the idea that your writing could be trying to teach you something. I know I’ve experienced that.
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I think you got my point. Sorry for being a little coy about the thing with my church, but it’s still a sore subject. Suffice to say, leaving my church was the best thing I could do for my spiritual growth. And if not for my writing, I’m not sure if I would have figured that out. Or maybe it would’ve just taken me longer to figure it out.
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