Those Essays Nobody Seems to Have Read
Those Essays Nobody Seems to Have Read
I'm not complaining, but really? Nobody read these?
I know at least three writers who claim they’ve never gone back to read anything they’ve written. Fran Lebowitz is one of them—not that I know her, actually, but I do kind of love how she can make me believe she’s got everything under control and the rest, she doesn’t give a shit.
She’s the kind of person who might be telling the truth—she just might never go back and read anything she’s written—not even just to read it, let alone take her red pen to it and slash it to pieces.
I’ve given up trying to even pretend I’m that way. I want to be able to read something of mine and change anything I’ve ever written whenever I want to change it. I want that so much I’ve put myself in a position now where I can do it. Any time I want. I’m my own boss here at Substack. My own editor. My own critic. My own fan.
I go back and read something I’ve written almost every single day. It’s kind of an obsession, I think. (Also, an admission that I may have way too much time on my hands. )
Something comes up and I vaguely remember that I’d written about that very thing1, or something similar, and I go looking for it, maybe not to even use it but to satisfy my curiosity. And if, after I find it—it may take hours, but they’re happy hours—and I like the way I put that thing together, I of course want to share it again. Because nobody saw it the first time and there’s nothing that says I can’t put it out there again.
There’s a downside to it, though. If I find something I’ve written before and there are clunkers or errors or just a word or two out of place, I’m embarrassed and I have to fix it. Right then. Even if its moment in the sun has long passed and nobody will ever think to go looking for it ever again.
I will know.
Just the other day I re-read a piece I’d written about a month ago and realized ‘inexpensive’ was the wrong word. Horribly wrong. I changed it to ‘ordinary’ and it was as if it came out singing. Perfect! Yes!
I love when that happens.
But moving on…
It’s the start of a new year and last year alone I’ve gained an unbelievable bunch of new subscribers (Thank you! Yes, you!), who, I realize now, have probably never read some of my earlier pieces.
And maybe they might want to.
So I’ve chosen just five of them to include here. They don’t have any special meaning, I would just like them to have a chance to breathe again.
Here they are:
I published this piece a day after the first anniversary of January 6; a piece from my own heart, addressed, I know now, to me. To tell me to be brave, to never quit, to remember the stakes, to be true to myself. I re-read it just now and realized I’ve failed in so many ways. But it’s a pep talk from me to me, so I hope I’m paying better attention this time.
This one I still like a lot. I like the title, too. But it got almost no reads and nary a single comment. Now, you don’t have to like it. This is not a test. I won’t think badly of you if you don’t like it or comment. I’m just putting it out there. (Of course, I wouldn’t feel terrible if you did like it…)
This one was fun. I’m giving advice here, talking about writing and freedom and the blocks we set in front of us. Something like that. But, as I said, it was fun.
This is another one that got no ‘likes’ and no comments. I suspect it might be that first paragraph. It’s a bit of a turnoff, but I’m including it because I write here about privacy. I wrote this before my husband, Ed, died, and before I began to pour my heart out in more personal pieces which had to be written mainly because my heart was breaking and it was all I could think about. I’m much more comfortable writing pieces that bring my own life into them now, but always with the caveat that I need to be comfortable with where I’m heading with them. Some of this still holds up for me, but I’m a changed writer now. Not all of it does.
And lastly, this one, because I love it. I loved writing it and I still love reading it, but it got no attention. At all. So I’m giving it another chance.
If you get a chance to read any of them, thank you. If you feel the need to ‘like’ any of them or even to comment, THANK YOU! And remember, everything I’ve ever written here is in the Archive. It’s all free and the Archive is open 24/7.
This comes from having written for more than 50 years. Of course I’ve written about something someone else has written about! It stands to reason. So why can’t I just let it go? I don’t know, but see what I mean? I even had to add this footnote.
I look forward to sitting down and reading these previous posts! So glad you shared.
Ramona, I rarely intentionally go back to read something I've written, but when I do, I usually think I wrote reasonably well back then. Sometimes I'll hear a little of my "voice" in that old writing, but usually what I notice is the structure just being messy. Things are a lot tighter for me these days.
That said, I've written like 250 things over the last 250 days! I want to do something like what you've done here, but I might need to rely on my readers to remind me of the things they've enjoyed. I'm not sure I have the stomach to look through all those old pieces.