Time.

Time! Time does some funny things to your writing. I have a number of manuscripts written over a five year period, and there were a few I decided to take a look at for the first time in a while because there are a few publishers I would like to send my work to. Wow. The results are I need to do some major rewrites on these manuscripts. I can understand the manuscript I wrote when I was seventeen, because I leaned heavily on hyperbole and obscure metaphors (only my seventeen year old self would understand them!) but the more recent feel so clunky. The ideas I’m happy with, but the way they’re written is flat flat flat. I’m actually quite excited about rewriting them.

On the flip side, of course, is when you find old poems and have to ask did I write that? Because that is good, really good. It weighs itself out evenly eventually. It shows how we can grow over a period of time without realising.