{"id":3459,"date":"2014-07-08T17:28:48","date_gmt":"2014-07-08T07:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/allisontait.com\/?p=3459"},"modified":"2020-09-10T12:29:49","modified_gmt":"2020-09-10T02:29:49","slug":"so-many-words-thrown-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/allisontait.com\/2014\/07\/so-many-words-thrown-away\/","title":{"rendered":"So many words, thrown away"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"photo\"<\/a>A few weeks ago, I had a freelance writing piece published in a weekend supplement. It was a good story, about whether it’s better to live in the city or the country. I enjoyed the interviews, I enjoyed writing the story, it looked great in print.<\/p>\n

Today I realised that I don’t have a copy of that story. Any more than I have a copy of the 80 million (round figure) other stories I’ve written over the past 20 years.<\/p>\n

Oh, I have some. My filing cabinet bulges with bits and pieces, including the article I wrote about the time Mr10’s favourite teddy went to bear hospital (he was two at the time, and it remains one of my favourite stories ever).<\/p>\n

I still have the first travel article I ever wrote, when I was working at Homes & Gardens in London and they sent me to stay in a six-star honest-to-goodness castle in Ireland. I have some of my best work from CLEO, buried at the back where my boys won’t see it until they are much, much older.<\/p>\n

But so much of my work is not there.<\/p>\n

Partly, it’s practicality. My study would look like something out of Hoarder<\/em>s if I’d kept every word I’d ever written.<\/p>\n

Partly, it’s pure laziness. I used to keep entire magazines, convinced I would clip my articles from them and file them in folders and… yeah, that never happened.<\/p>\n

Partly, I think, it’s pragmatism. Freelancing is as much about relationships as it is about clippings. It’s word-of-mouth recommendations and references. Never, ever underestimate the importance of maintaining those relationships and never, ever forget that the industry is small, and people tend to move around a lot – carrying their impressions of you wherever you go.<\/p>\n

I don’t tend to read my stories again once they’re in print. I’m too squeamish. All I see are the bits I could have done better.<\/p>\n

And so I throw them away. All those words. Those sweated over, sworn over words.<\/p>\n

And then I start the next one.<\/p>\n

In an ideal world, I would have all of my clippings, at my fingertips, filed on my website. (And you should definitely do as I say, not as I do.)<\/p>\n

But for now, if anyone has a copy of that Sunday Style<\/em> story, please send it my way…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago, I had a freelance writing piece published in a weekend supplement. It was a good story, about whether it’s better to live in the city or the country. I enjoyed the interviews, I enjoyed writing the story, it looked great in print. 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