Giving up my Cannibal Ways

It's going to be hard. 
But I think I can do it. 
Maybe. 
It's just so easy to cannibalise.
And it's all recycling, really. 
Which, as everyone knows, is good. 
Waste not, want not and all that.
But. 
My mum has spoken to me sternly about it. 
As has My Beloved. 
So I'm going to try very very hard to be good, and stop. 
Sigh. 
It just made things so easy. It made it so much quicker to get a result. A chunk from here and a chunk from there and a bit of stitching to sew it all together and voila! A whole new story!
But... I can see their point. 
It might have been a quicker result, but it wasn't necessarily a better result.
So from now on I will not go through the old manuscripts sitting around in old folders in old computers enticing 'Hey you could use a big chunk from me. I'm pretty much already there. No one will ever know. And think of the time you'll save.' 
But the thing is, people do know. And I know. 
So I hereby resolve to let sleeping manuscripts lie. 
And not take big chunks out of them. 
(But the waste, the waste...) 


Do you cannibalise?