I’ve heard it said that if you don’t look back at old posts you’ve written and cringe a little (or a lot), then you’re doing it wrong.
By contrast, re-reading a blog post from even just a few months ago, and not recognising the words and tone as your own…. that’s growth, apparently.
From a personal standpoint, I have never been more conscious of this phenomenon than in the last year.
In this time, my writing style has shifted from informational… to intuitive, in a creative evolution that wasn’t necessarily planned or strategic, but which has inevitably created definite disparity in my copywriting portfolio.
Nowadays, I find that a blog can be jumpstarted by anything from a piece of music, to a visual prompt such as a photo, and it’s for this reason that I find ‘zombie scrolling’ on social media - ironically - such a useful tool in the blogger armoury.
Of course, I’m speaking from personal experience here, and I’m fairly sure that even this post, in six months time, might be a face-palm moment in itself.
That said, I’ve come to accept that this reality (that you’re only ever as good as your last article) is the cross that many creatives have to bare, and that a craft can be the ‘carrot’ that rewards us, just as much as it is the ‘stick’ we use to beat ourselves with.
With this in mind, it’s onwards and upwards with the next ‘best works’, resolute in the knowledge that the greatest purpose of these pieces, will probably be to show my future self just how far she’s come!