Rereading Pages
The Artist's Way
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The awesome co-hosts for the
February 4 posting of the IWSG are J Lenni Dorner, Victoria Marie Lees, and Sandra Cox!
And the host is Alex J. Cavanaugh
Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.
Remember, the question is optional
February 4 question - Many writers have written about the experience of rereading their work years later. Have you reread any of your early works? What was that experience like for you?
Happy IWSG day! My first this year because I wasn’t quite ready for the new year in January.
The question of the month intrigued me. Reading my old work invariably surprises me because I don’t recognise the person who wrote those thoughts. I relate to what is being said and agree wholeheartedly admiring the turn of phrase and surprised that I am the writer. Or that I was the writer. Sometimes I edit mentally as I read, which is where I have changed from a person who was adamant that not a word should be changed and that I was the last word in grammar perfection. I see now that I wasn’t, that some rambling sentences needed a snip here and there and that commas, which I still don’t know much about, are random and irrelevant wherever I placed (and place) them. The difference is that I am now comma humble. I know my limitations when it comes to that tiny curved pause and I defer to those who know better and don’t mind my own drawbacks in that department.
I find some of my short stories disappointing because they need more work to take them to heights only hinted at.
Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash
The writing I don’t always enjoy rereading is my Pages (Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way). They just go on and on for months about the same annoying behaviour of people around me. I know Pages are meant to be a form of processing and hidden deep in there is some nugget of wisdom. Rereading them, looking for profundity is like mining for gold. I hope nobody ever reads them but I haven’t decided yet whether to throw them all away or to try and read them. What do you do with your Pages, if you write them?
What an excellent post, Kalpana! I'm with you. I look at my previous stories as a reader. Thinking, how clever the writer was to come up with the story. And them the editor in me starts tweaking sentences and words. Perhaps there should be a better sense of place here. A little more information about a certain character, no matter how minor.
Have a great day!
Never wrote Pages or a journal. Like you, I think it would end up being a big mess.