I Can't See!

[intothewood]

Help.

I’m going over my second book because it needs some fixing, and it’s definitely been awhile since I’ve read it through. But I’m in that state where I can’t really see anything for what it is.

Have you been there? One minute you look at something you’ve written and think ‘hey, that’s pretty good’ and the next minute you’re thinking ‘oh god that’s fucking awful!’ Or you get an obsession with, say, commas, and suddenly every fucking comma looks out of place. You’re reading unnaturally, halted by all the commas and the sentences don’t read like sentences any longer, they’re just a string of words separated by awkward commas!

I really need to do this, but I’m second guessing everything. Everything. The logical answer would be to put it aside, but I don’t wanna. Yes, I’ve turned into a stubborn four year-old who can’t read properly.

Stubborn four-year-old antics aside, have you had this happen and is there something you do to break from it? Because I really want to work on this today.

Comments

[smw]

Yes, yes, a million times yes. This is not helped by the fact that I sometimes do write shit and don't know it at the time.

That being said, are you reading this as an electronic document? I find reading my own work goes much better if I can look it over in hardcopy, since I don't have the option to immediately edit whatever makes me cranky. It also helps distance me from the fact that this is something I'm responsible for -- for whatever reason, words on paper don't belong to me in quite the same way electronic text does.

[intothewood]

Haha yes I know that feeling. Sometimes it's like speaking another language, you wonder if what you're saying makes sense at all!

You're right, that's a very good way to distance yourself from the writing. My printer is broken! My printers always break. Maybe they can't tolerate my writing!

[smw]

Aw, broken printer. They do get a serious workout when they're owned by writers, don't they?

[intothewood]

Yes. And somehow I always manage to buy crap printers. It's a gift, my ability to choose inferior printers!