We assume that we have failed to communicate that story well enough, have failed to bring the right parts of it to light, have failed to make explicit what we implicitly know: this story is good, damn it. I just need to tell it the right way. Which, clearly, I didn't do this time.
Yes, this.
I was fourteen when I wrote my first novel, and I thought it was the best thing ever. And of course my family and friends loved it; my stepmom went so far as to get two copies typed up and bound, one for me, one for my dad.
I don't have to dig out that old copy to tell you it was horrible. But love for storytelling has kept me writing for the past twenty years. (Lack of love for editing has kept me from getting more than a couple books out there collecting rejections, but that's my own damn fault.)
But at some point (I couldn't say when or why, but I suspect that having a computer may have been a factor) I started to look at my books with a more critical eye. I deliberately went looking for flaws in the story and boy, did I find them.
It was a painful realization, but a necessary one. I learned I had to edit.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2009-04-21 07:27 am (UTC)Yes, this.
I was fourteen when I wrote my first novel, and I thought it was the best thing ever. And of course my family and friends loved it; my stepmom went so far as to get two copies typed up and bound, one for me, one for my dad.
I don't have to dig out that old copy to tell you it was horrible. But love for storytelling has kept me writing for the past twenty years. (Lack of love for editing has kept me from getting more than a couple books out there collecting rejections, but that's my own damn fault.)
But at some point (I couldn't say when or why, but I suspect that having a computer may have been a factor) I started to look at my books with a more critical eye. I deliberately went looking for flaws in the story and boy, did I find them.
It was a painful realization, but a necessary one. I learned I had to edit.