Hey folks! I have been revisiting a lot of old(ish) work during these strange times. I was just wondering how you all approach old work and if you find recycled thoughts turn up in a lot of your new work. Is this okay as a writer? Or should we be focused on the new instead of the old? Let me know thoughts!
–Bella
Hi Bella,
I revisit creative work all the time, like it’s part of my psyche. I’m always trying to interpret and analyze my own work trying to find true meaning, or additional meaning. The issue with this is, the more I spend time delving into a something the more it loses significance to me (I literally like it less). But if I ever were to publish something I would want to know every turn and twist of it by heart. Re-examination is also part of what helps me perfect whatever I’m working on. I also feel like recycled themes is part is what defines an artist’s style, but recycled lines could get corny if there is not a deliberate reason behind it.
I revisit my old works constantly. I have lots of notebooks filled to various degrees that I scrawl things down in. Usually when I write, it’s because some word or sentence popped into my head that I thought was beautiful and I need to write it down, but often these come without an idea in mind. So I’ll scour back over my notebooks to find these phrases and assemble them into something I think uses them best. And sometimes, to my disappointment, the phrase doesn’t find a home, or if it does not to the same effect as I would have hoped. More often than not, my current works are birthed from things I’ve already written, some strand of an old project that never got fully realized or sentences stolen from my previous works. I think that would be foolish to think that our current works are not influenced by what we’ve already written, a painter doesn’t throw away all their paint after project is finished, they simply mix it with new paints to form a new canvas, and it’s no different for writers. Sometimes sentences don’t have their potential realized in a certain work and I feel it is essential to find somewhere to place them. I can’t just have notebooks on notebooks filled with notes to go nowhere.
Like Aria, I also keep continuous pages of phrases (or words) that I love but which have no home, and certain lines return and echo and repeat across time. I remember sharing in one of our first classes that I am still culling lines from (failed or just old) poems I wrote during my senior year at Middlebury. There was one line I carried around…it made an appearance in several now-discarded poems before I found where it belonged. Hold onto everything, you never know when it will finally settle into a story or poem to come.
Hi Bella,
I’m a very disorganized person when it comes to digital storage so while I revisit my old work quite frequently, it’s usually by accident as I stumble upon it while looking for other files on my computer. I have a file called WRITING on my laptop, but also write in Google Docs on two separate accounts, in the Notes app on my phone, on notepads of recycled paper I get from the Printing Services department in the FIC, on sticky notes… I’m also terrible at creatively titling my files of bits of writing, so I often name them something like “Sketches” or “Snippets.” With non-descriptive titles, I’m forced to open the file whenever I see it because I can’t just not know what it’s about, which often leads to the rediscoveries that lead to new pieces of writing. Just prior to the beginning of this course I happened upon a Word doc titled “untitled number something” and, clicking on it, found a deeply personal and deeply uncomfortable piece of writing that turned into the beginnings of my nonfiction piece for this course. During the same procrastination session, I also stumbled upon an old beginning of a story that I remember thinking was fantastic at the time I wrote it, with realistic dialogue and deep character-building. Looking back at it, I was surprised to find that I still thought it was really good; I rarely think the things I’ve written are halfway decent when I look back on years later because I can usually see all the ways in which my writing has grown since that time. But for whatever reason, that piece really worked, even what must have been two or three years later. I now have a great beginning to continue off of with current writing and a good example for myself to show me that I am in fact capable of combining both plot and character development, despite what my current writing might suggest. I also really like what Haeun said about revisiting with new eyes and I see it very much the same way. Anyways, long tangent to say that yes, I do revisit my writing, yes, I think revisiting is a good thing, and yes, disorganization may be useful in some instances.
Hi Bella!
I never do this, but after reading your prompt, I totally think I should. It seems like a great way to seek inspiration while also doing an exercise in finding how words you wrote once can have a completely new meaning and interpretation now. Thanks for the inspiration!!
Hi Bella,
Thanks for the great question. I personally write many snippets of content with the understanding that I AM going to revisit them in the future. I often get inspired by the world around me, and then I have to let it marinate for a bit in order to understand WHY it inspired me and WHERE I want to go with my writing. I have realized that just because something catches my attention or inspires me, it often takes me a while to find a meaning in it. It is only when I leave my thoughts or lines of writing, then come back to it (0ften weeks or months later), and finally understand what I want to do with it. I definitely think it is okay to recycle old work (as long as it doesn’t count as plagiarism in an academic setting), because it is beautiful to see how many different ways one piece of writing can be transformed and reinterpreted.
Hi Bella,
I like to think of it maybe as old ideas are never actually old because every time we revisit them, we’re revisiting them in a place of newness. What I mean by this is that I’m not the same person as I was 5 years or even 5 minutes ago. Because we’re constantly changing, so are our ideas if this makes sense. We interact with them in new ways through new lenses. I love reading my old work, even if it makes me cringe, because it’s a representation of what was important to me in those times. If those ideas are still relevant, still important, then I think it’s worth revisiting them again and again. And I feel like in general, all creative work from any time and place cycles through a dozen of the same ideas, just imagined differently based on the person who voices them. Maybe new ideas are just old ideas in disguise?
Hi Bella,
I actually constantly revisit old things I write. I often keep first drafts, but months, sometimes years later I’ll edit it into something new. Often, I’ll take pieces I like and work from it to create something new. I actually tend to have running documents of phrases or ideas I like but haven’t found a place for yet. This helps when I have assignments due (like in this class) because it’s like I already have inspiration instead of staring at a blank page. I would say that I probably have the same lines popping up in multiple pieces I’ve written over time, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. They’re just different variations, different representations of points in time. I don’t think we have to be focused on the new or the old. I particularly give the old a lot of value. Sometimes I get frustrated with myself that I can’t come up with anything new, but I take that to mean that maybe there’s something old that maybe isn’t finished, or hasn’t found its place yet. At least in my own work, I think it’s okay for things to come to life over time, or to have multiple lives representing points in time.