I learned a lesson in writing this week…
To be a good writer, hoard!
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By this I don’t mean fill your house with so much stuff you can’t move. I mean, never – ever – throw out your ideas, first drafts, or snippets of stories that you started (however long ago) but never finished.
Not only do old ideas and characters often evolve over time to become something bigger and/or better, sometimes you can revisit old stories ideas you rejected ages ago and, with fresh eyes, reinvent them into something awesome!
A few weeks ago I had a ten day gap between Dinosaur Hunter projects and I didn’t want to stop writing altogether. I knew my publisher Random House was looking for short stories for two future collections and I wanted to change pace and give that a go. Only problem was, I didn’t have nearly enough time to start something new.
I scoured old ideas and found two stories that I thought I could salvage and edit to fit the criteria. Just yesterday I learned both these stories have been accepted for publication.
More on these once the project is official, but I am so glad I sweated over the stories in their first drafts, and, that I hadn’t deleted them from my hard drive!
If you wrote something, anything, a long time ago – whether you thought it good or bad – I wonder what looking at it now with fresh eyes might show you?
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Meet David Harding! 