I was that kid who – when my mom told me to go clean my room – would get lost in her collected memories. I was (okay, still am) a rule follower and had good intentions for this chore, but I’d start at my cluttered desk, put some books away on the shelf and then start on the papers… notes from friends, unopened mail, both of which I’d read and then it all went downhill from there. I’d have a lot of fun during these “cleaning sessions”, but I wasn’t super productive. (Can you relate?!?!?)

Walking down memory lane is just one of many great reasons to keep your writing.

Let me be clear, I am not advocating for hoarding. One old draft of any particular manuscript is all that is necessary (once the piece is published and you no longer legitimately need your own story breadcrumbs to see where you came from). No one should take this blog post as permission to create a fire hazard within their office. Instead, I’m encouraging you to resist the dramatic urge to burn (or recycle) old work just because it was rejected or because it no longer represents your current skill set.

Not convinced? Here are 4 reasons why you should keep your old writing.

Resale and Repurpose

I recently discovered a few binders in my family’s storage space. Inside hundreds of protective plastic sleeves I found the articles I once wrote on Yahoo.com. Writing for the Yahoo Contributor Network was my first ever writing gig. It literally paid pennies… like 1.5 cents for every 100 views the article got online. The idea was that you’d have a huge bank of articles all earning you money. This one would earn you $.17 and that one $1.30 and another $.51, but all together… your dozens (or eventually hundreds) or articles would pool together a tidy little sum each month. I wasn’t proud of the earning potential, but I was proud that others were reading something I had written. So, I printed them off. Each and every one. I put them in the binder(s), and I watched my collection of words grow.

And I’m so glad I did, because in 2014 the Yahoo Contributor Network folded. In addition to completely drying up my only source of writing income (it was small, but hey it was a start!), they also erased ALL OF THE ARTICLES FROM THE INTERNET. Had I not printed them off, my hundreds of articles (and thousands of words) would have vanished.

These articles range on topics from parenting strategies to house organization tips, from classroom management techniques to yacon syrup. The scope is wide. And as of now, they have no home, other than my office, so if I wanted, I could wade through the words and find them a new, paying, home. Once these articles were deleted from their original source, they became “mine” again, which means I can profit from them again. Pretty nice, right? Worth printing and keeping? Totally.

See How Far You’ve Come

Often times when I was cleaning out my childhood desk, I’d find a story I’d written. Like any procrastinating tween I’d reread my work and discover it was… terrible. So cliché! So predictable! And the word choice, not to mention the excessive use of exclamation points… TERRIBLE!!!! At the time I’d feel embarrassed and shove that fourth grade notebook to the bottom-most level of my desk and pray that no one else would EVER see it.

As an adult, I look at that moment differently. I look back and say, “Hey, everybody has to start somewhere. This is your somewhere.” Now when I look back at old manuscripts from a year or two ago and cringe, I instead think, “Wow, I’ve grown a lot since then.”

Getting better at writing is a vague concept with an even vaguer judgement scale. How does one really know they are improving? How can you tell if your writing is any good? Looking back at old work and seeing noticeable differences is one concrete way to prove to yourself that you are getting better. If nothing else, that confirmation feels good. If for no other reason that this, I’d tell you, keep your writing. Writing is hard. Feeling good about your writing is sometimes even harder. This is one way, if you keep the right mindset, to affirm your growth and motivate you to keep going.

Rekindle a Passion for an Old Idea

Have you ever fallen in love with a story idea, poured all of your time, energy and heart into it and then… gotten stuck? Maybe the plot isn’t turning out on paper the way you envisioned in your head, or maybe you simply fell out of love with the concept/idea/character? Either way, you stop, stop thinking about it, stop dreaming about it, stop writing about it. It’s a pretty common occurrence for writers. You think it’s the end of the road for that particular story. Instead of trashing the idea… deleting the file, throwing away the notebook, tuck it away.

There was an initial passion there. A spark. Something exciting. One day in the future, you might light that fire again. Maybe you didn’t have the storytelling skills to pull it off the first time. Maybe you needed to live more life before you could wrangle your characters’ complex emotions and accurately put them on the page. Maybe it was just the wrong story at the wrong time. (I shared about a “Manuscript Breakup” experience here if you want to read more about walking away from a writing project.) Maybe later, it will work, or more specifically, it will work for you.

Or viewed another way, looking at your old writing can help you locate a quality story idea when you are currently idea-less. If you are feeling the urge to write, but your well of ideas appears to have run dry, go digging into your old files and notebooks and you just might be surprised at what gold you can mine from the cave of your past work.

Pride

This cubby of my floor to ceiling bookshelf is reserved for journals I have filled. It is the library of Amanda… or the unpublished library of Amanda… or perhaps the library of things I’d never want published? These notebooks are filled with personal journal entries, the rough drafts of blog posts, story musings, writing snippets from my critique group “homework” and other random bits and pieces of my days, life and thoughts. The only person I want reading these words is ME. But, I can share is that the amount of joy I feel when I pick up one of these notebooks… a book that is filled cover to cover with my words, with something I created… is immense. No one can take away these words I have written. No one can take away the fact that I am a writer… because the proof is right here… in my hands. Pride can often be synonymous with vanity, but I think there can be a purer, nicer form as well. I think that nice-kind-of-pride is what I feel when I look at this work I have done. And, so yes, I’m keeping these words, (yes, alllll of them) thank you very much.

What do you think? What words will you keep? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

If you liked this post, you might also like…

What does “well written” mean? What is keeping you from writing? How to Set Up a Writing Office

The content presented in this post was made beautiful by Canva.

If you liked what you read on my blog today (or are in search of weekly word nerd goodness) and would like to have it delivered to your inbox every Wednesday morning, you can sign up HERE. As always, feel free to share this post with others you think might be interested via email, Facebook or Pinterest. **

Affiliate marketing is promoting a product or service in return for a commission. When you purchase a product or service through one of my links, I earn a small part of the sale. There is NEVER any extra cost to you. If you looked up the same product on the same site through another source besides my website, the price will still be exactly the same. 100% of the time.

I also NEVER link to products or services that I don't 100% believe in. I will never tout a company or their goods if they are disreputable or if I don't believe them to be worthy of your hard-earned money. In no way are my affiliate links a scam. (Language borrowed with permission from Kristen Kieffer on Well-Storied.com)