I read recently that writers and artists are never satisfied with their work. Is this true? I thought I was just being picky and weird about my work because it never seemed good enough. But if this is true and most creative people feel this way, then I'm in very good company. Why are we like that? What is it that makes us think our work needs to be made even better over and over again?
It's good to be critical - writing is rewriting but when it stops you writing full stop it becomes destructive- many great writers have come to a sticky end - i.e spending all day to decide where to put the full stop nonsense. Accept that first draft 'is shit' Hemmingway.
Thank you Adrian. I am definitely guilty of all the above. I have cut, added and changed so much that sometimes I completely lose the plot. I liked the Ernest Hemingway quote it's very true.
Hi Elsie.
The danger in editing to much is that you may over-egg the pudding and accidently spoil your manuscript by cutting, adding and changing to much in the search for perfection.
We will never attain perfection, but we strive to do so in the hope that our determined efforts will lead to us becoming accomplished writers, eventually.
We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master - Ernest Hemingway