Found a used bookstore in Portland with a handwritten draft in the margins

Margaret Owens · 2026-10-09T16:20:03.74752+00:00

I was killing time at a used bookstore on Hawthorne in Portland last weekend and picked up a beat-up paperback for two dollars. About twenty pages in, I noticed someone had written a whole alternate version of a scene in the margins in pencil, crossed out half of it, and tried again below. It was messy and full of arrows and side notes, and honestly it made me feel better about my own rough drafts sitting in a folder. I keep thinking about how that person never meant for anyone to read it, yet it was the most honest writing in the whole store. Has anyone else found old drafts scribbled inside a used book that stuck with you?

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Found a used bookstore in Portland with a handwritten draft in the margins | Bad First Drafts - Thought Shares