there's always room for improvement

i'm constantly amazing and embarrassed when i read my writing from years ago. amazed because of the changes and improvements i can see that i've made, and embarrassed because of the way i wrote before those changes and improvements were made. i mean, i know that it was necessary to write like that in order to get to where i am now because bettering your writing is a stepping-stone process.

but still.

and for the record, i'm not talking about my writing on this blog. this is where i don't edit what i write most of the time. i'm not trying to be grammatically correct here (obviously). hell, half the time i'm just exciting if my posts make some sort of cohesive sense (which i know they don't. sorry!)! right now i'm definitely talking more about my academic/professional writing.

this all came up today because i've begun to edit my senior thesis. a journal at my undergrad has asked permission to publish it, and so i decided that before submitting it to them i should probably read over it for the first time in three years.

oh. my. god.

i actually stopped reading at one point and asked myself why these people would ever offer to include it in their very legit publication. and then i had to ask myself why i would ever do that to myself. i mean, it is leaps and bounds away from the way i write now. and yes, my writing now has been very influenced by my legal training and so is obviously going to be much more clean cut than it once was...but duuuuuuude.

i'm already nervous because of the subject matter, and because i've now got to get in touch with a bunch of people i interviewed for the piece over email and ask them permission to publish their opinions (or just take them out). so the fact that i would never stake my reputation on the writing i did three years ago is just freaking me out.

so i began editing the entire thing all over again today (even though the journal editors will do the same once i give them a finalized copy...it's just that as a journal editor myself, i needed to give them something better to work with, you know?). and i'm going to end up revamping everything, i can just tell. my language, my style, my organization. i mean, i can't stand the first sentence of the thesis! that can't be a good sign...

like i said, leaps and bounds, my friend.

so i've got my work cut out for me over the next couple of days. wish me luck!