On 10/20/97 12:52 AM, Jeremy 'Loki' Blackman at loki@thekeep.org wrote:

On Mon, 20 Oct 1997, Travis Butler wrote:

want to go professional. Professional writers don't have the luxury of 
waiting 'till inspiration strikes; to make the rent payment, they have to 
keep writing, keep producing, without regard to 'mood.' And, in fact, 
most of them say that going back a month or two later, they can't 
objectively tell that the stuff they wrote feeling it was crap was any 
worse than the stuff they wrote feeling it was gospel.

This depends.  Kit (Katherine Kerr, the author of the 'Deverry' novels)
has told those of us who hang around in her writing forum numerous times
(as have many of the other professional writers who hang around in said
forum) that no matter how much time and effort she invests in a novel (not
always short stories, but almost invariably with novels), when she comes
back to the story after it's been published, she -always- finds things she
wants to change.  

Oh, absolutely. Doesn't really affect the point I'm trying to make, 
though: If they put enough distance between them and the work, they 
really couldn't tell the difference between the pages they wrote 'feeling 
inspired' and the stuff they felt they were just hacking through. Or, to 
put it another way, the 'inspiration' had just as many problems as the 
hackwork. :)

I think it's the same thing, but the fact is that whether you thought it
was 'crap' or 'gospel' when you wrote it, you'll find flaws and things you
wish you'd written differently after the fact. :)

Yup. :)



Travis Butler
(The Professor, formerly of Myth and Magick!, Lawrence, KS;
 tbutler@tfs.net, now from the Wandering Powerbook;
 <http://www.tfs.net/personal/tbutler/>;
 Mac page <http://www.tfs.net/business/tbutler/>)

...Online insanity! $1 per line, all major credit cards accepted.