The most cringe thing about finding traces of my very earliest published work is not, in fact, the content, but the fact that no one bothered to edit it enough to fix my inability to distinguish between possessive its and it's, the contraction of it is.
@HauntedOwlbear the curse of learning and improving your skills: whatever you did before will by definition be worse than what you do now
also
*shakes fist at editors*
@sargoth When I eventually got a full-time job at a magazine, the outgoing editor there had me write a 450 word piece, and then sat with me and went through what must have been at least 40 things wrong with it.
He was definitely trying to help. And in fact did help, but dear gods was that soul destroying. (Thanks, Paul! You made me a better writer! But I totally cried in the office toilets after!)