Cannibalizing previous work

When you've been writing for a long time you come to the realization that some of the stuff you wrote when you were young was just awful. Pure crap!

I've written two novels in the past. The first one is something that I was proud of way back in the day that I now would not allow to see the light of day. The second one is ok, but isn't on par with the kind of work I'm doing now - not to say the stories I write now are perfect but they are certainly better than my first two novels.

Another thing that many writers do is cannibalize their work, which is exactly what I've been doing with both of these works. The novels themselves are not something I want to publish, but many turns of phrase and the ideas presented in them are wonderful. I plan to use them in future works. In fact, I have already begun cannibalizing them for my current stories. Stories like that, while not publishable, are a goldmine of ideas and well written sentences and interesting turns of phrase. It's like getting ready to cook a meal and turning to the cupboards and the refrigerator and finding them full of good things to use. It's a wonderful feeling and they enhance the stories that use them.

It also let's you know that all that hard work you put into a novel that isn't publishable after all counted for something useful.