
I'm not one to hide my love of writing. It's the first thing I mention when a new acquaintance asks me what I like to do for fun. Throughout high school, you'd hardly see me without my black three-ring binder that held my first handwritten attempt at a novel and got so beat up that its spine was eventually held together with duct tape. And during slower shifts at my day job, you might catch me scribbling down drafts for upcoming blog posts (provided everything on the daily to-do list is taken care of beforehand) and typing away on my NEO2 during my lunch breaks.
But here's the thing: while I love talking about writing, I find it much harder to talk about what I'm writing. I'll mention the genre of my WIPs or the basic plot details if they come up in conversation, but anything beyond that can admittedly be a struggle to get out of me.
There are definitely some insecurities at play here. I've talked a time or two about impostor syndrome and feeling like my writing isn't good enough. There's an element of vulnerability involved, especially when a WIP is inspired by personal experiences or it's an early draft that is far from where you want it to be and you're afraid of judgment by your peers because you know it's not at your best yet. And we've all heard the horror stories of letting someone read your work only to have them turn around and steal it, publishing it as their own.
That all said, while people do ask what I'm working on, it's not as common to have people express interest in reading it—at least, not before I feel it's ready.
So imagine my surprise when three of my coworkers decided they wanted to read one of my WIPs and wouldn't relent until I caved!
After a solid ten minutes of volunteering themselves as beta readers, I gave in. And so I spent my next two days off skimming through the most recent draft of Bound to the Heart, since that was the closest to "ready" out of my various projects; for one thing, it's actually typed up unlike Against His Vows, which at this time only exists as a handwritten first draft.
I really should get around to typing that one up TBH...
The next time I was at work, I handed off the flash drive with an emphatic reminder that Bound to the Heart is still a hot mess of a draft and that this was only meant to be taken as a proof of concept. You can tell exactly where the last round of edits came to a screeching halt in favor of prep for NaNoWriMo and writing A Tided Love, as the narration grows weaker if not absent, there is a lot more telling than showing going on, and Eve and Zach are suffering from silent protagonist syndrome. Plus the random history infodumps make it very easy to tell Bound to the Heart started as my research project for a London travel course in college.
I knew it was going to be quite the experience going into it, but it was actually really fun to go back and see how much my writing style has changed since I last worked on Bound to the Heart. But that's not the only takeaway from this unexpected dive back into my older writing, so I figured it would be interesting to share some of them in a more comprehensive post.
Cringing Is A Sign Of Growth
Around the time Facebook's Memories feature was introduced, I remember seeing a quote going around that read something along the lines of, "If you don't cringe at your past posts, you haven't grown as a person." This could be applied to any number of things from sharing a positive review of a movie that in hindsight wasn't that great to a hot take that was actually a little narrow-minded.
This speed-read of Bound to the Heart was the first time I'd really sat down and taken a good hard look at it in about 18-24 months. I knew it was in very rough shape when I left off but didn't realize just how rough it was.
Needless to say, there was a lot to cringe at. It was stiff and stodgy. Certain lines that didn't land the same as when I'd written them. The amount of outright telling going on rather than showing was honestly atrocious. And don't get me started on the spicy stuff that I'd written well before I had an understanding of how to write those scenes!
All in all, it was good to laugh at (and with) my past self. But more importantly, the number of times I found myself cringing at my old writing is something to celebrate as a mark of my growth as a writer. I noticed so many common mistakes I now know to avoid and weaknesses I've begun to overcome.
Plus I'm now even more excited to go back and make those changes when I resume work on Bound to the Heart someday! Considering one of the reasons I had stepped back from the project to do NaNoWriMo was being in an editing slump, so this dash of motivation is especially sweet.
Don't Break Your Word Bank
Throughout elementary school, our teachers would tell us to use hundred-dollar words in our writing. This boils down to avoiding simpler words in favor of an elevated vernacular. For instance, instead of saying that your character was mad, you might say they are irate or furious to give that sentence a little more oomph.
I took this idea and not only ran with it but sprinted a full-on marathon in the middle of a blizzard.
While it's a good idea in theory, it was kind of detrimental to my fiction.
I've written ad nauseum about how my school years impacted my writing style early on, but I haven't gone too in-depth about my word choices at the time—in part because I didn't realize just how egregious it was then.
Throughout this read-through, I found myself stopping far too often, needing to backtrack and figure out what the heck I'd just read (even though I'm the one who'd written it in the first place). Some passages were clunky and awkward, meaningless in a way because they failed to convey the proper sentiment.
Some call this flowery, over-the-top language Purple Prose. And in my past writing, it was particularly abundant. Not only did it mess with the pacing of a scene, it took me out of it completely because I'd have to stop reading in order to go back and try to figure out what that line or passage meant before I could carry on with the story.
In writing, there's a principle known as K.I.S.S., which stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid. It's the idea that, sometimes, it's okay to simplify your writing in order to get your point across. You can use the fanciest words in the world, but they won't matter if they interfere with the story you're trying to tell.
Writing is about more than how many words you know. It's knowing which words to use and when. And sometimes, that comes down not to which sounds the coolest but what makes your story the clearest to your readers.
You're Doing Better Than You Think
I'm my own worst critic, and I'm guessing that's true for a lot of writers out there.
From the moment my coworkers successfully, "bullied me into letting them read my book" (their words, not mine), I found myself trying to quell their hype. Even though they promised they didn't care about the imperfections of the draft in its present form, I didn't want to get their hopes up. They weren't about to get a masterpiece, and I wanted to make sure they knew what they were getting themselves into.
While the main objective for rereading Bound to the Heart before the handoff was to refresh myself on the story since I hadn't looked at it in a while, I was also frenetically trying to fix as much of it as I could in 48 hours. Bolstering the internal conflict, expanding on scene descriptions and historical context without writing a textbook, showing more than telling, getting past my shame of using "said" when it suits rather than highfalutin alternatives, wondering if the antagonists were antagonistic enough...
The time constraint was beneficial in a way. It forced me to stop worrying so much about the tiny details for the moment and instead reflect on how far I've come. Sure, Bound to the Heart still needs some work, but there's plenty of good to be found and built on.
Give yourself the credit you deserve. Writing a book is hard but you're doing it. Slow progress is still progress. Celebrate your growth and every step you're taking towards your writerly dreams, no matter how small it feels in the moment.
The Importance Of Support
We wouldn't even be here if it weren't for my work fam.
Writing can be a very lonely thing, and it's something that in my experience is sometimes regarded as a frivolous little hobby by non-writers until you make it in the industry. There's so much going on behind the scenes that they aren't privy to, much of which you're more or less figuring out as you go.
Having a group of friends not only offering platitudes of encouragement but showing genuine, wholehearted interest in my writing was admittedly difficult to process, especially with my insistence that what they were getting was a shitty draft nowhere near where I want the story to be.
As self-proclaimed general audience beta readers, their feedback is going to be so helpful going forward with Bound to the Heart and other stories. As my friends, they have my back. I know they'll be there to lift me up amid rejections and losses and celebrate my successes with me, and just give me that additional push of motivation when I need it.
As I've come to learn in recent years, sharing your work with others is vital for your success as a writer. My writing group has been instrumental in helping me improve and recognize areas for growth not only as they've given feedback on my own writing but as I've read their WIPs.
But this was the first time I've had coworkers express this much interest in my writing goals. I know I called their enthusiasm "pestering me into it," I truly do appreciate them. This look back on my old writing has been fascinating because it's the first time I've really been able to explore how much my style has changed over the years. There are things I still need to work on, of course, but this Proof of Concept draft is in a way proof that I've grown and can only continue to improve on my skills as a writer.
And to Lucy, Shannon, and Christian: if you by chance read this, thank you. For making me go back and revisit this story and for your support and encouragement not just at work but outside of it. ♡

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