Over the last several weeks and months, I have finally recognized how important writing and reading is to my quality of life and my sheer happiness.  No joke.  If I have a writing project, I am happy.  As a student, I loved writing assignments.  Even if I didn’t love the subject, the book, or whatever it may be, I could always count on myself to do well. 

Some of my earliest and best memories of elementary school are of creating “stories.”  As I learned to write, my “stories” became less picture/drawing based and included more writing.  I love the fact that writing plays such a prominent role in my earliest educational memories.  By the way, I still can’t draw.

What I’ve come to realize over the last week or so is that I didn’t value my early writing much. When I say early writing, I am not talking about childhood or even adolescent writing.  Those journals are safely tucked away never to see the light of day.  No, I am talking about the writing I did from 2005-2012.  During that time frame, I published dozens of throw-away articles for a now-defunct website called Associated Content.  As a writer for Associated Content, I wrote articles on all kinds of topics – reviews, how-to, and more – for a small upfront payment and then residuals.  Page views mattered!  After a couple of years, the site sold out to Yahoo!, which eventually shut it down.  Even though I had ample warning and could have saved my hundreds of articles, I didn’t.  I didn’t care enough.  The content just didn’t interest me enough.

While I don’t regret not putting in the time and effort to save my work with Associated Content, I do regret not saving my JamsBio work.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have much notice.  JamsBio, a now defunct online magazine, paid writers to discuss their memories as it related to music.  I only wrote ten blog posts, but it was the most fun I ever had “working.”  Even though I wish I had those articles, the ideas planted by writing those pieces live on.  I will eventually write something similar here.

The reason why all of this came to mind lately is due to different projects I am currently working on.  I just wrote my first piece for the Macbeth Post and had my first podcast published on Spartans Helping Spartans.  In fact, I am in the middle of writing a series of posts on study abroad for Spartans Helping Spartans as we speak. All wonderful stuff that I will share here.  

That’s just it.  I need to share some of my other work here.  There is an infamous piece I wrote on the Witchy Wolves of the Omer Plains for Michigan’s Otherside.  It is probably the earliest writing I did online or close to it.  I’ve toyed with the idea of a rewrite, but people keep finding it and sharing on Facebook.  Then there are a handful of articles I’ve written for the Huron Shores Genealogical Society Genogram. I’ve long meant to share them here permanently.  I just haven’t taken the time to do it yet.

As writers, we need to take care of our work and not let it become lost to time.  I wish were better at taking care of my own work. On a fun note, I came across an old online journal dating back to 2003.  Interesting doesn’t begin to describe it.  It brought back memories long since forgotten.  It is time for me to take better care of my own work.