I struggled with the temptation to be embarrassed by my older stories when I went and uploaded them to AO3, but you know ... I'm not. I've mostly resisted the urge to re-read them, because I know I'd probably find a million things I want to fix, or maybe even take them down completely if I got to dwelling on their flaws. But, honestly, I think the hand-wringing that some writers do (pro writers, too) about how embarrassing and awful their early work is -- it's a form of ego, really. It's shamelessly self-indulgent. And it's rather rude to all the people who really liked those stories at the time, and didn't consider them poorly-written or juvenile.
I did the best I could at the time, and even though I write much better now, and often my ambitions outstripped my abilities, I'm still proud of me for trying. Ten years from now, I'm sure that I'll be writing much better stories than I'm capable of now, but that doesn't make the stories I'm currently writing bad stories, even if they make my future-self wince a little bit.
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I did the best I could at the time, and even though I write much better now, and often my ambitions outstripped my abilities, I'm still proud of me for trying. Ten years from now, I'm sure that I'll be writing much better stories than I'm capable of now, but that doesn't make the stories I'm currently writing bad stories, even if they make my future-self wince a little bit.