Oh yes, lots of times!

But, I'm kind of like Stephen - I either save it somewhere, or put it away for a while and come back to it later.

Abdellah - your post reminded me of something I'd about forgotten about.

A number of years ago, I was a writer in the media relations office for Florida State University. I churned out press releases, PSAs for radio, short articles on professors and their studies - that kind of thing.

They assigned me to write a story about one of the professors in the rehab department. This professor had polio while she was a child, but had overcome many odds to make it to becoming a full professor. It took me about three weeks to interview her, write..and rewrite..the story until the bosses were happy with it.

The day the story was to be released, something else took place on campus that was deemed more newsworthy, and my story was shelved.
"We're not going to use it now," they said.

It was one of those things I was ready to burn..and forget. I put it into a desk dawer, where it sat for at least a year. One day, while cleaning out the desk, I stumbled across that story.

The prof was still working at FSU, so I made a quick call to her, updated one sentence in the article, and sold it the next day for $45 to a local magazine as a freelance article. So, it didn't go to waste.

Could be gold in those ashes!