Revisiting Old Writing - Ouch, That's Gotta Hurt

Written by Robert Bacal |

I'm in the process of editing another new edition of one of my existing books, which is not my favorite thing to do. It's actually harder to edit than to write something new, because you kind of have to go back and get in your "old" head to figure out what the heck you were thinking when you wrote the first version.

That's particularly the case for material you are re-doing that might be years old. In my case I'm going back 6-8 years for these book.

Yike. You discover some unpleasant things, mostly about yourself. These are some examples of thoughts:
Oh my God, now I know why business writers are considered boring.
NOW, I understand why nobody likes me
Well, Robbie, it's true that you never use one word when 100 words can confuse the issue.

...and so on.

It's just the way it is. We are and should be our own harshest critics. If you read things you wrote a long time ago, and can't find fault, it's probably because you haven't learned anything about writing in the meanwhile. Now that's depressing.

All the self-flagellation is normal, and good. Means you are on the right track. Just don't hand on to what you did in the past. it's done. It's gone. Grown up, left the nest and Ok. it ended up in Angola prison but what can you do as a parent.

Then again, there are some really nice moments revisiting the progeny. When you see a phrase you really like and say to yourself: "Hey, I really wrote that?" first as a question, and then "Hey, I REALLY wrote that!", as a congratulation to oneself.

That's it for now. I'm Robert, and I author Writer's Cramp.

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