Old friends, like wine, don't lose their flavour.
-Yiddish proverb-
Or... do they?
I don't like to re-read what I write. My journal pages, the odd story written years ago, the earliest bits of my PhD, whatever I don't need to edit any longer, I never re-read. I've come to the conclusion that I am not keen because, upon re-discovering my writings, I either depress myself by the state of things at a given point in time (like so, 'I thought this was good then but now...'), or I depress myself by the state of things at this point in time (like so, 'Bloody hell, why cannot I always write like this?'). I guess they are one and the same really, for they both make me shake my head in disgust and reach for another Irish coffee. But writing is a form of growth and by its nature it is organic and changing. This mutability of our selves in relation to our writing is something that we should learn to capitalise on, for it is only by moving ahead that we can understand deeply our motivations for writing. Today the exercise isn't so much about writing but about the process of reading. I find this type of work hard, painful even, but I think that whatever understanding is worth having in life is worth working hard for.
Find a piece you wrote some time ago, months or years, and that you had pretty much forgotten about. Read it once only and answer these questions:
- Is it any different from what I remembered?
- What did I remember?
- What is different exactly?
- Does it read better/worse because I have changed as a writer or because I have become a more sophisticated reader?
- Could I re-write it now?
- Do I want to re-write it now?
- If the answer is yes, go ahead and re-write it.
- If the answer is no, tell me this instead: where is your resistance rooted?
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