Perspective on one's own writing

You think it's crap because you're too close to it. As a writer, you're unable to read your work the way a regular reader would. It's kind of sad really. You could write the greatest novel of all time, and the only person in the world who wouldn't ever be able to see that is you. It's like how you don't really notice yourself changing or aging. You just look in the mirror one day and you have chest hair or your first gray hairs or whatever, but you never see/notice yourself grow. Because you can never step outside of yourself, see yourself the way others do. I think writing works in a similar way.

Cyia said:

Usually I think what I write is garbage, but after a few months, if I read it again, I'll be able to pick out things I like.

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If I read it again, I come to the conclusion that it sucks even more than I originally thought.

Every agent and editor I've ever submitted to seems to agree, so at least my judgment isn't entirely faulty.

For me at least, things tend to get stale the more times that I read them. When I first come up with it, I think it's the most brilliant thing anyone's ever written, but after a month of re-reading it, it sounds stupid to the point that I'm embarassed to have written it in the first place.
This is when I have to stop myself from deleting the entire ms and just send it to a friend instead, so that she can tell me whether or not it actually IS the dumbest thing ever written.

I used to hate everything I wrote, and if I go back to some older stuff I still do, but for me it depends on how difficult it was to write in the first place. I'm never as comfortable with beginnings so those always tend to make me nervous. If something is really difficult and takes tons of rewrites, then I always go in anticipating the crappiness.

On the other hand, I actually like most of what I reread now. Sometimes I'll get caught up in it, or forget parts that I really enjoy and think, "Gosh, did I actually write that?" I even had a first chapter that I rewrote like 30 times (so not exaggerating) and the last time I read through it, planning to rewrite it again, I realized it actually didn't suck anymore. It wasn't amazing or fantastic or the best piece of writing I'd ever done, but I was satisfied with it. That's a good way to put it. Most of the time when I reread now, I'm more satisfied with it than I anticipate.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. I mean, I keep trying to improve, but I actually think I'm a pretty good writer at this point. I worry, however, that I'm just biased. On a weird note, I find it hard to believe when other people like it as much as I do.

Bartholomew said:

Interesting phenomena last night. I was editing my WIP and was generally pleased with what I had written. Got tired. Went to bed.

Woke up, reread the page, and thought, "This is the worst, unreadable dreck. What am I doing?"
Seriously considering Prozac.

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This is pretty much every morning for me. I wish that I could offer some sort of advice. I'll admit, it's nice to know that I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Unlike you however, I find that such revelations totally destroy my desire to write.

If you should decide to use it, let me know how the Prozac works out for you.

If it's good I like it, if it isn't I don't. If I'm not sure I'll ask someone to beta

I think I have a realistic perspective on my writing: It's dreck—sometimes it's even borderline pretentious dreck—and that's why few others ever see it.

Bart,

Like anything in life, its all about balance. It's good to feel confident that what you write falls somewhere between acceptable to brilliant. It is also good to feel that you can do better.

For me, I just don't want my work to read as acceptable, but I know it will never approach brilliance. I am still searching for the happy medium where I will be comfortable and I don't cheat my readers.

What I do know is that what I write today, is better than what I wrote 3 years ago, which was better than what I wrote 3 years before that, and so on and so forth. It's called progression...