As a writer, it’s sometimes painful to go back and read old stuff that I’ve written.  It’s even worse if somebody else reads it.  A few days ago somebody found the first post that I wrote for Dysfunctional Literacy and left a comment.  It was complimentary (way nicer than the post deserved), but when I went back and reviewed the post (and a few others after that), I was mortified. 

The posts were poorly written.  I referred to myself as “we” and mentioned the people who read this blog (there weren’t any back then) as “dysfunctional literates.”  I’m kind of embarrassed by that now.  I’m tempted to go back and edit or delete everything from the first year, but I also think there’s nothing wrong with seeing how this blog has progressed over time. 

Even though the quality of writing was poor, some of my early topics were pretty good. …