Reading Your Own Writing--for Pleasure

Never. After my books are complete I don't read them again.
C

Well, my own writing has surprised me when I re-read through it, but the only reason I do re-read is to edit, revise, and proof.

Once I've decided it's "done", I haven't gone back to read it. At all, and certainly not the same way I read the books on my bookshelf. I just can't. I think, though I might enjoy the characters and be pleasently surprised with some of the words and actions and descriptions...I'd be way to critical to actually enjoy it.

I do go back and read the trunked novels for pleasure. I still love those characters, so rereading the story is like visiting with old friends. Sometimes I even find myself laughing at my own jokes, which is a nice thing.

I would rather stick a sharp fork in my eye.

I usually don't set out with the intention to read my own stuff for fun (I've got enough reading material as it is!), but sometimes, when I'm looking back on a story for a particular incident or something to refresh my memory--or sometimes when a certain scene just pops into my head and I want to look it over for the heck of it--I'll find myself browsing over longer sections of the story and enjoying them. It's not bigheadedness or anything, since I have so little reader interest that I figure my writing's not that good, but one of the reasons I write the stuff I do is because I love the subject matter and nobody ELSE is writing it. *I* find it entertaining. So of course I'll read it for fun, even if I don't intend to. (Then get totally distracted from whatever else I was doing, usually writing!)

It's funny, my psychologist brought this up at our last session. She said, "Do you sometimes think that nobody else's writing is better than your own writing? Not in a snobby way..." She attempted trying to clarify herself but I understood immediately. Heck yes I sometimes think there's no writing better than my writing, at least to me personally! Why else do I keep churning the stuff out? It's the kind of stuff I'd instantly pick off the shelf in a store.

Again, I'm not saying that means it's any good to anyone other than me.

ETA: I must admit I'm shocked that there are people who would never want to read over their own work, even much later...to me it seems rather like abandoning friends or something. I can't imagine not wanting to look back on something like that. But to each his/her own. I'm admittedly attached to my own stuff.

Usually I'm too busy writing new stuff to reread old stuff except for editing purposes. However, I do enjoy pulling out something that's been maturing in the vat for a while, because then I really do approach it from a reader's rather than a writer's POV. Takes me a long time to switch those POVs -- probably at least a year.

willietheshakes said:

I would rather stick a sharp fork in my eye.

Click to expand...

Ha. I probably wouldn't go quite that far... but I never read mine either. It's kind of funny because before I had anything published I thought it'd be kind of cool to read something I wrote in actual book form... but unless I'm actually doing a reading somewhere, I don't even look between the covers after the books are published. For one thing, I'm usually a little tired of the book by that time and on to writing something newer and more exciting. And for another, I'm scared I'd find typos that I'd be horribly embarrassed by, or I'd find lines I'd want to change. I could go on editing forever.

I read my own writing for fun all the time. I mean, the main reason I keep writing at a fast pace is because I want more stuff to read, lol. If my completed novels were in regular book form instead of computer files, they would be held together with tape and rubber bands from constant reading.

Maybe I enjoy reading my own work so much because I'm not critical. I have to be one of the least critical writers out there when it comes to my own work. I never have figured out if this is a good thing or a bad thing (I never get bogged down in editing or self-doubt, but is all the stuff I think of as 'good enough' actually good enough?)

One of the really nice surprises of the revision process for me was that I could actually enjoy my own writing. That was so cool.

I have never had anything produced (I write scripts) or published, so I can only comment on my (many) WIPs. I always, always re-read my stuff. If it's garbage you rewrite.
*falls over from blinding flash of obviousness*
First and foremost your job is to WOW the reader. This is why you collect crits, and go back and forth re-reading your stuff. You need to know what other people think, if in fact you want anyone else to read it.
It is a tremendous learning experience to dig up stuff I wrote two, or 10 or 25 years ago and appreciate just how bad it is. After all, if you hate it is unlikely anyone else will like it. OTOH maybe I read something that gives me that bang, that emotional twitch I want my readers/viewers to feel. I did something right? Yay for me!

I finished my first script, as in a complete FADE IN to FADE OUT first draft, two years ago. It took five weeks. Since then it's received dozens of largely negative crits, which I have used towards two full rewrites and many lonely nights of proofreading, analyzing characters, continuity checking, and reading over and over. I wonder if it'll ever be done.
This goes for the two other scripts I've completed since, the four primary WIPs on my table and the piles of notes I've accumulated. One day I will be a pro writer and I'll be able to sit and bang out a draft in two weeks, sit on it for a year and then go back and read how bad it is, and create a magical final draft from it. But I'm not there yet.
[/talking about me]

tehuti88 said:

ETA: I must admit I'm shocked that there are people who would never want to read over their own work, even much later...to me it seems rather like abandoning friends or something. I can't imagine not wanting to look back on something like that. But to each his/her own. I'm admittedly attached to my own stuff.

Click to expand...

I'll go back and read things I wrote in grade 12 (which was more than a few years ago), because it's funny. And I'll re-read my unpublished novel.

But by the time my first novel was published, I was sick of it. It's more than editing. It's revising a billion times, then line editing, then copy editing, then proofreading, then reading the ARC, then GIVING readings and talking about the book, reading reviews, etc. And now I look back and think my writing has improved, so I don't really WANT to read that book, because I don't think the writing is as strong as it is now. And I'm sure I'll feel the same about my second novel, and my third, and so on.

I have about 50 unread novels on my shelf, another 25 on a wish list, and a WIP. I don't have the time or the desire to go back, not at this point.

Too many great stories out there. Can't afford to waste my time reading my own. Just writing them was time lost that could've been spent reading.

A lot of the stuff I write, I write because I haven't seen it and I really want to read it somewhere. So I write it and I read it over and over and over again to proofread it, until I get kind of sick of it and never want to read it again. If I read something that I've declared myself "satisfied" with, I'll find something that I really hate and trying to change one thing causes a domino effect on all the others. It's incredibly frustrating and I've come to terms with the fact that I will never be fully satisfied so I have to draw the line between useful edits and useless edits.

NealeSourna said:

To me, not revisiting, and seeing both the love and the flaws I've been allowed to write, is like treating those works like a stereotypical one night stand, where you get what you want out of them--payment, deadline, whatever--and then walk away and never look them in the eye, or speak to them ever again.
.

Click to expand...

Maybe I'm doing it wrong -- how do you get writing/payment/deadline/publication out of the way in one -- even proverbial -- night?

By that metaphor, my novels are relationships, spread out over time.
Short stories are dirty weekends away from the significant either.

When I reach the point that I have several works in print, I may go back and read over them to observe my progression/improvement as a writer. However, I think I should avoid it before then, because I'd be overcome with shame at the mistakes I will inevitably find.

I read my own work all the time, even before it is finished. I read it to check it for mistakes, or for places that I could improve on, and stuff like that. I also read it because it is like the other books that I like to read.

At least I catch stuff because I do this.

I'd imagine if I ever get published I'll really enjoy reading my work as an actual book, just for the novelty. But other than that I can't say because I'm only just beginning to write.

I reread my work only for consistency, editing, line editing, etc. After a certain point (usually the end of the second month of editing), I'm ready to never read the novel again.
If I want to feel I've grown as a writer, I pull out my first trunk novel and flip through it.
I've only done that once, though.

Yes, once in a while when I am feeling in that melancholy mood, I will read snippets from my novel. But I have to be in a very specific mood: the same type of mood I was when I wrote the book.
It still transports me to the fictional world of the protagonist, and it can still even make me cry!

Yes I often read through my old stories, particularly the ones I wrote when I was a child. They can make me laugh and cry! I find it fascinating from an analytical point of view what was actually going on for me at the time I wrote them, and how this showed in my writing. That's the main reason I read them, although it's also good to see how my style has changed over the years.

I never read my stuff for pleasure. When my articles come out in newspapers or magazines, etc, I clip them and file them away...without even reading the first sentence. I don't think I ever read through a manuscript I've written, if it wasn't to edit it. I can't distance myself enough to read my own words for pleasure...I'm too cynical and hyper-critical of them.

KTC, maybe you should try it. You might be pleasantly surprised.