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For some projects I finish them and sit on them for a few weeks or months. Then I revisit them, make a few minor tweaks and then release them. Sometimes you hate something and after a few weeks you look it over and say “this is amazing.”
This is me trying to write. I will get through a chapter and think it’s brilliant, but will convince myself I’ll save loads of time of I just edit each chapter as I go. Problem is, every time I open it up, I seem to have a different opinion on what’s good, whether I like the way each sentence flows, etc. Eventually I come to the realization that I’ve completely butchered it in the process.
Write drunk, edit sober.
Not literally, obviously. Drafting should be a quick, almost frenetic process. Placeholder names, notes that say “add description here”, the works. Only go back if you have a major plot setup to insert and only if it can be done in less than a minute. When you’re drafting you should be pumping out hundreds of words an hour. Don’t think, just do.
After you’re done, take a break for a while. Then come back in editing mode and scrape the mess into something palatable.
Just read Bradbury’s Death is a Lonely Business (introspective, life-affirming, lightly fatphobic), and in it he writes something like:
Throw up in your typewriter every morning … Clean up every noon
Good read for writers, fence sitters, and half-livers
Interesting, I kind of have the opposite problem with composing music. I do need to take a step back from it, to recognize that some new section sounds completely out of place. I guess, the two art forms (or we) might just be different, though.
Am a musician, and is also true for any song I write
Wow, you go straight to hating it without leaving your seat? I usually have to either go to sleep or go out to do something else to leave some time for my idea of the drawing to grow further from the actual drawing before it happens.
[Edit: I answered as if it were about a drawing when it’s about a text. I don’t have any funny or useful insight to give about the later, since I can’t relate: Everything I’ve ever written was perfect. Also, I don’t write.]
The thing is, when people actually publish these works, the only person that hates them is the author.
The toil. The hardship. The lament. I was writing 10 screenplays deep into a 13 episode season. And in a blink of an eye, shoved everything into the back of a drawer. And said to myself, “that should’ve never happened - that all needs to stay inside my head.”
Ugh this is relatable as a (hobby) writer, but also as a programmer.
I just finished a rewrite of an internal library, and now that I take a step back, I see how my new implementation 1) works, 2) is bad, 3) is useless.
It’s hard to throw away so much work
When this happens, I usually wait a day or two and review the text then. Better to do it with a clear head at that point.
Definitely how I felt after finishing my master’s thesis. I never showed it to anyone I know.
