Repurposing Old Ways of Seeing

byTitaWorks

1.9K followers

2 years ago

This past month I've been cruising through old websites and blogs that I've kept active mostly as repositories for experiments in writing and blathering that I have tried -- some successfully and others not so much.

I fell in love with some things again and I was reminded of interesting directions I did not pursue because there were other directions that were more pertinent or vital for whatever I was into at the time.

Because I held on to all this old stuff, I can see how my style and voice have developed over the years. I also recognized a number of my go-to styles that haven't changed much.

This gave me some understanding into the whys (for me) behind all this. And I am also noticing the mistakes I keep repeating. Oy! (I am never going to be an ersatz Hemingway, I say.)

The deadline for the shut-down for all of my older efforts is coming up shortly. However, there are topics and other things in there that can be reworked into my LIFE-BUILT POEMS: Living Out Loud blog that I think will help me get to where this monetization effort of mine might get some better traction.

So I took the time to pull the bits I liked out and gathered them together into one giant 'yes' pile that will probably get torn apart and re-pieced together into other different bits. Looking at the old stuff with new filters is a good thing, I think.

(It's starting to feel a lot like quilting, this thing.)

What I figured out is that salvaging your old writings and rethinking and reworking them makes for a lot of excellent topics to write about -- topics into which you've already put in at least some time and thought.

This is probably the best benefit of developing and building evergreen topics. It also helps if you have developed a consistent voice along the way.

Hope you've had your own insights this past month.

-- Netta