Paradox of Posting
My son is throwing oranges at the couch while I ponder what writing samples to include on my website. I've limited myself to ten writing samples. Teddy has no such limitations and has chosen to use all of the oranges for his antics.
So, how do you choose writing samples? It seems a little easy to say that you pick the pieces that you're the most proud of, but that runs into the problem of either being proud of everything or not being proud enough of anything. There's nothing to be done about being proud of everything and it's not a bad thing. It just means you have a lot to sift through. But not being proud enough is a bigger problem.
Your writing deserves to be seen. If you want people to read your work, you have to put it out there, regardless of whether you think it's perfect enough. I'll be honest, if it wasn't required for an assignment, I might not actually be willing to put up my Television Spec Script. But it took a lot of effort and hair pulling to get that script out of me and onto paper. It was a lot of work. So why should my ego, my desire to make everything perfect, get in the way of showing off what I've actually accomplished? A 30 page script that certainly isn't awful is an accomplishment, even if I can't quite force myself to read it again (too soon, way too much effort spent).
Back to choices. Teddy has chosen to put all of the oranges back in the basket. I can't choose all of my writing samples to post on my website, so I chose a variety of formats. I have a television script, a short story, a comic book script. I even have my four favorite undergrad essays. I enjoyed writing them and they were a lot of work as well, so why not include them? No reason not to.
Moral of today is to be proud of what you write and to not be afraid to let the world see it. Take a deep breath and hit the post button. Everything will be okay, even if something isn't perfect.
Also, don't let Teddy play with oranges. I'll get right on that.
Until next time, friendly whippoorwills!