This Week's Topic:

[twopoint]

Hi!

Question: How long does it take after you've edited and posted a fic to be able to re-read it without feeling like you're going to throw up?

(I'm seriously emetophobic, so typing the words 'throw up' is very hard for me, but no other phrase comes close to expressing my feelings on this matter.)

Comments

[questails.livejournal.com]

Do you want an honest answer or an egotistical, cheerful Leo sort of answer?

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

You're funny! Hmmm! I am going through that revolted-by-the-story-I-just-posted period myself right now with my Ardor-in-August fic. Sometimes I actually like a story that I have written right away, but usually the best I can expect when I first finish is to hope it is better than I think it is.

But if I wait too long to look it over again, I find even more things wrong with it. My favorite thing I have ever produced, my novel, A New Day, makes me want to pull my hair out right now; I looked at it the other day to check for a point of continuity in my personal canon and I wanted to sit down and re-write the entire thing.

My answer is that I have no answer. Maybe if it were a drabble or a short poem, I could look at something and think it was as good as I could get it, but never on longer things. I usually just have to declare them finished and "off limits" at a certain point, unless I spot an obvious error or typo.

[voksen.livejournal.com]

I, honestly, never like anything I write. I'll sometimes like sections of 100 words or so, but a whole fic - never. It usually gets worse with time for me, too; I'm much, much more likely to think something is okay when I finish it and then a month or three later think it's fucking garbage than have my opinion go up.

[levadegratchets.livejournal.com]

Are you serious?

Never.

I don't re-read my own writing unless I'm in the mood to beat the crap out of myself, which...yes, I do.

I will pick out every last freaking phrase I hated, still hate with a passion and then beat myself to bits for posting it in the first place. ETA: Then take it down, and never post it again. Done that.

I don't do this to anyone else though, just me. This is why I love reading other people's work and never understand how writers fall so in love with their own writing. THAT really boggles my poor mind.

I'd try to be philosophical and nice about it but that's why you have Ramie.

[lauand.livejournal.com]

It doesn't work like that with me. Time is only a factor when talking about putting a distance between the fic and my memory of the fic, so that I can read it again instead of reciting it by heart, which blinds me to the fic itself (I think I already mentioned in a former discussion).

But the fact that something written by me strongly upsets my digestive system is more related to the fic than to time. Normally, when I finish a fic there's a short time of euphoria when I think it's my masterwork. Then, I re-read it and I realize it's not so much. Sometimes I even realize it's crap. But that's nearly instantaneous. What happens with time is that I find (specially in the longer fics) scenes and paragraphs that are CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAP. But sometimes I find good comebacks, too (dialogs are my favourite part to write) or something witty that makes up for all the cheapness. Well, not for all, but still.

Anyway, I'm a bit of a narcissist. I like to re-read my own stuff after a while. I'm not blind to the utter cheapness, it's just that I center more on the other bits, the ones I like (even if they're not objectively good). Maybe it's because my lack of self-expectations that I can take my writing so lightly, who knows.

[voksen.livejournal.com]

twoooooooooooooooooop!

I NEED TO TALK TO YOUUUUuuuuuuUuUUuuuu where are you it's important and awesome