(no subject)

[jack]

I recently reread most of Maurice Saldini, the first story of any sort I wrote, and tried to look at it objectively, which is only at all possible for me now, many years later. I concluded that about half of it is really good -- not necessarily for anyone else, but things that I really enjoy, and am very pleased to have written -- and that the other half is mostly mediocre, things that seemed like a good idea, but don't add anything. And all needs some heavy editing it make it properly grammatical, rather than being so dense in wisecrack each sentence is top-heavy. It's just that cutting out half of things you liked once is really difficult, which is why I'm not an author.

Comments

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you were, at that time, a passable author in need of a good editor. That sounds commercially-viable.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I was going to say I had to admit it was more "admitting things needed to change" than "knowing what needed to change", but then, maybe those are about the same thing.

I expect it's why a lot of authors' first books are much more moving that later ones: after many rewrites, they get very polished, but the next time, people are happy to buy something that has the author's strengths in it, but it's not been iteratively improved first.

I've definitely toyed with the idea of actually trying to sell something, but I don't know if I will.

at that time

Well, I hope I've not got worse. Although I might have, I've not written anything ever so exciting recently :)