January posting meme: rereading own work

[hedda62]

pendrecarc asked: Do you ever reread your own work? Why, and what is it like?

My first reaction is to say, "What? Yes! Doesn't everybody?" but I suppose, as usual, it depends. I'm assuming that "reread" here refers to after publication/posting, as opposed to the approximately five billion times I've read through Time for Tea for editing purposes and the proportionally fewer but still significant number of editing passes that fic gets. But, after I'm done and it's out there: well, I haven't picked up my print copy of TFT and read that, because I am sick to death of it and I'm afraid I'll discover more typos (I do, however, need to do a reread for typo-discovery purposes at some point). I suspect this will be the pattern for the novels as they come out, because really, all those words? I am done with them. Though possibly I will peek at favorite bits, and certainly there will be cross-checking to be done as I refer back to things later in the series.

Fanfic, on the other hand, I do reread, and I think this makes sense, because most of it is self-indulgent and, much as other people may enjoy it, I write it for me. Usually the pattern goes: read again immediately after posting, because that's when the errors I missed in editing make themselves apparent; read a few times more in the next few days, especially if it's a story I really like and I'm getting a good reaction from readers; then leave it alone for a while. And then I may reread it on impulse down the line when I'm in the mood, or when someone new discovers it and leaves a comment (that's the "what were they reacting to?" read, when either I want to experience that again for myself or I honestly don't remember).

This pattern varies a lot by the fic. I recently reread "Further Up and Further In" when I got a comment on it out of the blue; aside from the initial check-for-mistakes reads, I hadn't revisited that one, I think because it was such a bear to write that looking at it just exhausted me. But now, all that is long enough ago that I can just enjoy it - and hey, it was pretty good!

Heh. Now I want to hear everyone else's take on this, so I can see if my writer-ego is amazingly out of whack. Confessions? Slap-downs? Meta?

Comments

[philomytha]

Your ego sounds pretty much in line with mine. I do eventually reach saturation point with my own stories - haven't reread AVD in a long time now - and I find I often can't reread something for a few days after I've posted it because it makes me all squirmy, but I definitely reread in response to comments. I also have this weird tendency to read it through pretending I don't know the canon, just to see what it looks like from that angle. And I do also sometimes discover things I had completely forgotten writing, which is a nice surprise.

[hedda62]

I haven't yet reached the volume level where I forget I've written something! Interesting about reading from a canon-ignorant perspective. I do try to do that with crossovers, but usually before posting; otherwise it hadn't occurred to me, hm.

[philomytha]

I got a comment ages ago from someone saying that they didn't know the canon but enjoyed the fic, and ever since then I've wondered about what my fic looks like from that perspective.

And the ones I forget tend to be the ones I wrote relatively quickly, less than a week. Though I do also forget major edits, so I'll reread something and discover I added a whole new section that I'd completely forgotten about. And because, as you say, this is all written to please myself, it's wonderfully gratifying to discover this kind of thing - a story that really was written just for me!

[isis]

PS I did find one relatively significant typo in TFT - I bookmarked it if you want me to send you the info.

(I love rereading most of my stories after sufficient time has passed.)

[hedda62]

Yes please, do send me the typo. (username at gmail is fine.) There was a formatting event that resulted in random removal of italics, mostly in interior monologue, and I caught many but I'm sure not all.

[eight_of_cups]

My rereading habits are much the same, including the tendency to leave older things alone until someone leaves a comment, except that I would also add that occasionally I reread things of mine when I wish to reassure myself that I do not totally suck as a writer. There are certain fics of mine that I usually accept are objectively good which I'll use for that purpose. :)

[hedda62]

Oh yes yes yes there are those moments, and I reread for that purpose as well. And a certain feeling of reliving the experience of writing something really good.

[orockthro]

Heh. I very much reread things I write. I think you got it right when you said so much of fanfic is self indulgent, so much of it is for the author. It makes sense that we consume our own work, at least a little.
For myself (I'm super curious for other people too) it's very very easy for me to distance myself from words I made. I can actually (sometimes) entirely forget writing something. Or at a minimum, lose all the emotion I had making it. o_O; Never for things I draw. Those burn into my brain, but words... fade... so rereading is the only way to remember they are there.

[hedda62]

Oh, fascinating! Which probably means you are an artist first. Forgetting writing things would be really hard for me, but insofar as I do visual stuff, it doesn't cling in the same way.

There is a great thing in the Feb. 27 New Yorker in Talk of the Town about Emily Dickinson and the visual shape of her poetry, and how what she wrote it down on may have affected what she wrote, but alas it is locked to subscribers only online. Grr.

[tinny]

Interesting!

I think one of the reasons I can't be a good writer (or a good artist, either, for that matter), is that I have too little patience. I *hate* going over it again and fixing mistakes. I need a lot of time to work myself up to it, and thus often I just don't do it.

For the things I *have* published, I do go back to look at them when I get comments (*very* rare) or kudos, just to see what the response was about. A little to reevaluate my own work.

[hedda62]

It does take a while to work up the patience (and courage) to go back and look at work, but once you acquire the habit it becomes a necessary and desirable part of the process. At least for me!