Thank you for writing this. :) My friends who aren't writers look at me funny when I say "and now I have to go rewrite this crap."
"If you care so much, why didn't you just write it correctly the first time through?"
*headdesk*
Fortunately I can explain it to some of them (this being Nerd Engineer Land) that they don't design a software system correctly on the first run either, and that it takes a lot of brainstorming to go from draft to final design. ETA: and even so, when you do actually implement the system, you run into a bunch of heebie-jeebies you never thought to take into account... and now you have to redesign again, some times more radically than others.
The ones who are good engineers nod.... the ones who aren't won't get it anyways.
I was exposed to the "my writing is garbage" writerspeak when I read Neil Gaiman's blog, about a year after American Gods had hit the stands. When people asked why he didn't blog while writing the book, he said that it was because the blog would alternate between days when he was happy with what he wrote and days when he decided that he wrote crap and was never meant to be a writer.
I remember being surprised by that. But he had said it in such a way that I didn't think he didn't care. On the other hand, I am very trusting in nature.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2008-04-05 01:37 am (UTC)"If you care so much, why didn't you just write it correctly the first time through?"
*headdesk*
Fortunately I can explain it to some of them (this being Nerd Engineer Land) that they don't design a software system correctly on the first run either, and that it takes a lot of brainstorming to go from draft to final design. ETA: and even so, when you do actually implement the system, you run into a bunch of heebie-jeebies you never thought to take into account... and now you have to redesign again, some times more radically than others.
The ones who are good engineers nod.... the ones who aren't won't get it anyways.
I was exposed to the "my writing is garbage" writerspeak when I read Neil Gaiman's blog, about a year after American Gods had hit the stands. When people asked why he didn't blog while writing the book, he said that it was because the blog would alternate between days when he was happy with what he wrote and days when he decided that he wrote crap and was never meant to be a writer.
I remember being surprised by that. But he had said it in such a way that I didn't think he didn't care. On the other hand, I am very trusting in nature.