Why You Bringing Up That Old Shit?

Should you update your older books to keep pace with society’s moral progress and your own moral growth?

I began writing my very first novel, Yaccub’s Curse, in 1993. My second novel, Pure Hate, was started only a few years later. I want to say 1997 or 1998. These were both first published more than a decade after they were originally written. Pure Hate was just rereleased this year by Madness Heart and I was asked by my editor, the wonderful and talented Lisa Lee Tone, if I wanted to update some of the language. I declined.

Yes, there are word choices, ideas, opinions, and descriptions that don't conform to modern ethics or morality. They don't reflect my own moral growth and progress. But I left it in because the problematic language and opinions I used and held in the 90s as a product of my time, show how far I have come. That book marks one of many milestones in my moral evolution. It would be hard to assess my own progress if I erased my past and pretended I had always been this enlightened being. Not that I'm some paradigm of moral excellence now, but I have come a long way in the last 30+ years.

Whether to take certain books out of circulation that no longer reflect our ideas, opinions, morality, writing craft, or technical skills and abilities, or to rewrite them, is a tough decision. On the one hand, as a writer, if you don't cringe when you read your older work, you probably haven't progressed much morally or technically. There is at least one book I published early in my career that I successfully buried because it was so bad I was ashamed of its existence. And I would be lying if I said I hadn't rewritten a short story or two before allowing them to be reprinted. On the other hand, altering my past writings can feel a bit like “dirty deleting” on Facebook when you realize you said something you shouldn't after receiving some backlash so you erase it rather than confront the mistake, admit to it, and apologize for it. I like to own my mistakes, as often as I can, and there have been many.

Does this mean that if I wrote something truly hurtful and insensitive or even hateful that I would allow it be released again or reprinted and that hurt reinflicted? No. Absolutely not. I would burn that book myself.

I completely rewrote a short story years ago when a friend pointed out that it was hurtful. I deleted the old version from my laptop so it would never again see the light of day. And I would do that with an entire novel if it was pointed out that it contained language that was hurtful rather than allowing it to continue to cause harm. Having a record of my personal moral progress and growth is not so important that I would risk causing harm to others. But where the language is merely cringey, but not hateful or harmful, I would probably let it ride and allow my readers to laugh at what an idiot I once was.