Revisiting Old Work

I still haven't published my first or second novel, but it's about time to take another swing at it. At least, that's what I was thinking a few weeks ago. I've started a few novels I never finished over the last several years, so I looked there first. At first, it was a slog. I don't usually go back to old work, much preferring simply to start something new if it seems beyond hope. My early writing is not good, and bunch of it is never gonna be.

But some of it!

Some of it was all right. Just clumsy and disjointed. And that's great. My first drafts are usually pretty incomprehensible at their best. But It can be fixed. One of the abandoned docs had about 30 pages of a sequel to my first novel, but it also seemed like it'd work as a standalone. I dug in, and it was that perfect moment of feeling like I knew what the story was already. I just needed to change it. The writing isn't always fun or easy, but it's wonderful on those rare occasions it is. I'm also thinking about doing a solo album this summer. Nothing too fancy, probably a fair number of older songs rearranged out of a full band format and back. Probably a handful of tunes that never made it onto albums. Anyway, I dunno, my message for other hyper-focusing individuals out there? Sometimes it's not backwards to go back and make full use of old work. Dig in there every once in awhile.