Diary of a bad self-editor

[ivyblossom]

8:50am: La la la! Oh frabjous day! I'm going to edit and edit and edit, and soon my manuscript will be done! And there will be much rejoicing!

9am: Mmm. Hungry.

9:10am: Whither my meal plan card?

9:30am: Mmmmm food. Yum yum.

10:am: Here I go, Calloo Callay! Editing on my merry way! Chapter 13, here I come! The joy! The bliss! Tra la la!

10:15am: Okay, this chapter kind of sucks. But it's not too bad, a little verb tense shifting, it will be fine.

10:30am: Yeah, it's okay, this will be fine. The rest of this chapter is perfectly okay, as I recall. A weak start, but come on, I'm not aiming for a Pulitzer here.

10:35am: I have a terrible memory for my own crap writing, apparently. CHAPTER 13 SMELLS LIKE ASS. What crack was I smoking when I wrote this? How could this craptastic chapter have lasted this long? Was I just too tired to notice that it makes absolutely no narrative sense? Can I save it? Is there anything that can be done? Can a firm edit save even a morsel, a portion, a little snippet? Surely, surely it can be done!

10:40am: It cannot be done. This chapter reeks like an evil, reeking thing. I fear I have lost brain cells just trying to take it seriously. TAKE THAT, you vile choad! Get into yon hither trash bin AND DON'T COME OUT.

10:45am: *weeps* Dammit.

I mourn for the chapter that could have been. The chapter I could have written well if I'd bothered to try to save myself a day of pain and heartache, but now am faced with rewriting from scratch. O ye nasty and brutish chapter 13. I spit on thee.