In the back of my desk at home, I have a hard-copy folder with every thing from ideas on slips of paper to full 35-pg drafts of creative writing. These snippets and booklets go back to about 2002 mostly and continue on to 2005-ish. In the book, Page After Page, by Heather Sellers, a creative writing teacher based in Orlando, she writes that your real-life experience is good compost material and that a folder of ideas and crap can be like your actual compost pile.
Two nights ago, I decided to dig through my compost pile and found a few surprises. In fact, one of the drafts I didn't recognize at first. I thought for sure it was some self-help write-up to get me writing. It turns out, I wrote it! So I've got about two decent start-ups, one 35-page draft that has potential and the re-write of my already-(self)-published novel: Sing, Girls, Sing!.
This means there is hope for me yet. One, because I can find a great story idea in my draft pile years later! And, two, because I can look at something I published and realize THAT's the piece of crap.
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