When I started this blog, I was an A Level student. Between now and then I have successfully completed a Creative Writing degree at Bath Spa University and have started out a career in copywriting. That’s a lot of new experiences and a lot of time for my writing skills to improve and I believe I have gotten better in these last seven years.
The fact that I have gotten better means that I look back at some of my earlier Trusty Water Blog posts and feel like they’re not up to my current standards. I wish I hadn’t reviewed certain books or games so long ago, because I know that had I played or read them now and written a fresh review, it would have been so much better. Similarly, I wish I hadn’t written up certain anecdotes so long ago, because I could have written them in a much more engaging or entertaining way now.
There’s nothing stopping me from just going back and changing those old blog posts (and I do certainly edit them) but I don’t feel I can completely rewrite them. It would be disingenuous for me to do that. The other solution is to just write them again as new posts while leaving the bad originals intact – but for me that sets a worrying precedent. I’d probably end up writing things over and over every five years.
Funnily enough, I have sometimes wished that I had started writing this blog earlier in life, but if I had done that this issue would be an even bigger one. As it stands, I will just leave the old, less well written posts. At very least, I like that reading these back to back would create a pleasant transition from my old writing style to my current. When things are public, you always have to be very careful about when you start…
