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.

Comments

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Not my fault! You're right! The suckitude is entirely dependent on it's placement in the story. That means someone else should fix it, right? Not me. No no not me.

[pignacious.livejournal.com]

No, no, just because it was caused by the unlucky 13 number doesn't mean you don't have to fix it yourself, it just removes the weight of the guilt factor hanging over you and interfering with the thought processes.