This blog is sure going a different direction than I envisioned. I meant to post samples from my latest movie projects. But this creativity storm that’s pouring down on me is a bit more interesting I think.
A recent urge begged me to sneak into the garage and pull out that dusty old bin which contains the remnants of my High School days. Back in HS I collected a plethora of my creative results. Feature length screen plays (2 of them), numerous short stories, drawings, and even the raw footage of an episode of “Tales from the Darkside” that I wrote and directed for drama class. But when I went through my “I’m sooo done with stupid high school” phase (which lasted over a decade) I threw nearly everything away.
Now that I’m looking through this bin I see there’s not much in here. All that’s left is a hand-full of drawings, one novella, 2 term papers, and a program of my last dance performance. Everything else…gone forever. What was I thinking? Why did I trash all that passion and hard work? Did I think I’d look at it later and feel embarrassed? Did I think my stuff was stupid? I honestly don’t know. But now there is this big gap in my creative history. I desperately want to see those treasures again. Did I really have any potential of being a great writer? Now I guess I’ll never know.
How about you? Did you keep your earliest creations? Are you glad you did or didn’t? Should I stop whining and get back to living in the now??!
I can relate so well – 150+ awesome radio shows at KWSB, and I threw out all the playlists probably 8 or 9 years ago (going through my “I’m so over my divorce/college/radio days” phase). Tossed out the reel to reel and all my soundchecks too. I’m STILL kicking myself for doing that. But you know, at the time you do a huge toss-out it seems to make sense, and you’re not really looking ahead to the future. You did your clean-out for a reason too. Live now and treasure the memories you make today (but you’re NOT a whiner, so try not to kick yourself too much either).
I think the main reason to keep my old creative work is that it’s fun to look at, like old photos and mementos. Sometimes I will run across some writing I thought was really brilliant 15 years ago, and now I see it was not truly that great. It was an early effort. It was practice. All an important part of the process, but the actual finished product is not too helpful to me now.
I’m not sure if that’s true for everyone though. If you had developed a ton of great ideas, even if they are in the back of your brain somewhere, it can be hard to retrieve them. I can have a million dollar idea one day and it’s gone by the next if I don’t write it down. Also true for picking something up at the store.
Either way, I guess what’s done is done. All you can do now is move on. Or, maybe use your anger and frustration at losing it to fuel new creativity!