The Inevitable Process of Editing Old Stories

One of my failings as a writer is I tend to avoid rewriting old stuff. Instead of going back and fixing a lot of my earlier work, I just chalk it up to a learning experience and then write something new. As a result, I have about 150 short stories, 12 novels, and a whole bunch of other writings, including plays, poetry, screenplays and whatnot. But I’ve been writing for about 25 years now, so over this time, I’ve managed to build up quite a catalogue of stuff that just seems to gather dust, or takes up space on hard drives that don’t get used any more.

So, recently, I decided that it was time to start going back, finding this old stuff and rewriting it. A lot of it is actually pretty damn good. Some of it is atrocious. I guess that happens because few people sit down and write War & Peace their first time out. Until that big break, many of us have the bad habit of writing stuff like Raid of the Evil Mole People, or worse….

So, I’ve started with the first of many of my short stories, looking over the list of stuff that hasn’t seen the light of day for years and rewriting them. My first three (figured I’d do this is batches of three and then send them out once completed) are some interesting selections:

“Precipice,” one of my later short stories involving a psychological study of a writer who realizes that his last story may in fact be his LAST story.

“Simple Girl,” a short story of a young woman who sees life in simplicities, but through her daily adventure projects the revelation that perhaps she is the only one who truly understands the complexity of life. This one actually won a contest a few years ago, and I never bothered to do anything with it after winning.

“Postcards From Hell,” one of the last stories in my old Runner series, which was one of my more successful collections of short stories that were heavily published in my early days of my writing career. Most of these stories were dark horror, and at the time I was actually on the way to creating a market for myself in this genre. This was the final story in this grouping, but it was shelved before I ever had the chance to start submitting it. Then I went on a very long hiatus before writing again.

So, I’ll be working on these over the next week. Let’s see if anything comes from it.