Save Your Writing

I’ve been feeling a bit nostalgic lately. As odd as it may sound, I think the rising costs have something to do with it. I have way less money and each month is a bit of a struggle, and it takes me back to my early twenties up through the recession of 2008.

What was interesting about that time, was just how gung-ho I was about getting out of debt and trying to avoid the stress of money problems that were keeping me up at night. There was a huge influx of personal finance blogs as the recession claimed jobs and homes, and it was a great time for blogging. There were a lot of people out there trying out new ways to live and documenting it online without the pressure of social media or monetization.

Earlier today, I wanted to read up on some of my own thoughts during this time period, but 99% of it has been lost. The only thing that remains is a dozen or so posts that The Internet Archive managed to snag back then. Gone are the archives of those blogs, plus all of my journals, and I regret deleting it all.

I once had a text file that was full of everything I’d written, both offline and online, from around 2002-2018. At one point in time, I even moved it over to Word and had a book printed, which ended up costing me an arm and a leg and I had to cut the book in half because of just how big it was. This massive text file was in chronological order and while I didn’t save any of the pictures, it was nice to have my thoughts preserved.

Despite this file not taking up any space, in one of my “get organized and reset” modes I deleted it. I deleted anything from the past, as a way to start fresh. I no longer felt responsible for updating the file and initially it felt great. I had “killed the old Brandon” and begun new. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that this happened shortly after my divorce.

I think the divorce definitely played a part. I didn’t want old posts with my ex’s name in it. I just wanted that chapter closed and a new one begun, but it’s never good to make decisions when you are emotional and while throwing out the physical book was no big deal, I really should have left that text file on a thumb drive or in my Google Drive somewhere for future reference.

I have done a great job of preserving the last four years of blogging by creating .epubs at the end of each year, and I’m sure one day, I’ll want to revisit those posts the same way I’d like to revisit some blogging from 2006-2010 today, but I messed that up. So, learn from my mistake. If you write, even if you think you won’t want it down the road, it takes basically no space to preserve it. Hit Export on your blog, save a backup (you should be doing this anyway) and even when you start fresh with that shiny new domain name, save your posts. They don’t have to be online, I totally get pulling off blog posts that no longer reflect your beliefs or the person you are, but save them. You never know when you might want to take a trip down memory lane.