Treasure Hunting

Last night, I sat down and went through a box of my old writing. My original intention in doing so was to find an old (and I mean OLD) poem I wrote about my high school art teacher. I didn't find the poem, but I found everything else: short stories written for college writing classes, poems penned during dark times, story ideas jotted down for later writing, lists of possible character names, quotes about writing, old college research papers, etc. etc.

Some of the writing made me cringe. Did I write THAT?! But some stuff nearly brought me to tears. Did I write that?

So I decided to really go through that old box of writing, to pull out the gems and create a pseudo writing portfolio to occasionally visit to remind myself that I do have a smidgen of talent, even if I don't have the routine and stamina of a "real" writer.

I'm also pulling out some of those story ideas that were never written. Some of them have a lot of potential. And this year, if you recall, is the year I write 25 things. Perhaps some of the 25 things are in that box!

I tell you all this in order to remind myself (as well as other wannabe writers out there) that we ARE writers. That just because we don't have novels on bookstore shelves, just because we don't have a long list of publishing creds, we do have some treasures among our paper piles. We have potential. We are beginners. And all "successful" writers were once, too, beginners.