Okay, confess!

[Whispersecret]

Who goes back and re-reads their own stuff, just because?

I do. Heh heh. Once in a while, I'll call up one of my stories, read it, re-live it, sigh, and think to myself, "Damn, I'd forgotten how much I liked that one."

Anyone else?

 

[Madame Manga]

If I spent half as much time writing as I did re-reading my "masterpieces"...*sigh*

Both writing and re-reading let me live in my self-created world. Difference? Re-reading is a hell of a lot less work. ;-)

MM

 

[sachiaiko]

Hehe...

Yea, i do reread my work. And if it turns me on more then i rememberi it doing to begin with i get all proud and beamy and show it off

But yea, i enjoy reading my own stories back again.

Nik

 

[Alex De Kok]

Re-reading early submissions...

...and wincing!

Alex

 

[tripleflip]

Self-Editing

Yah, I do that all the time, reread my own stuff, especially when I am still writing it. Before I got interested in math, I wanted to be a writer like my Aunt Marla. She's cool, she works down town. She's a widow since my uncle died in a plane crash. When I was little, she and mom and my grandfather were the only people who didn't want me dead.

Mom was a skater, too, and she was just about to break into the big time when she got date-raped by my bio-dad. I was the result of that rape. Is that a load to carry, or what? Okay, it's all right now, in fact it's a gas. I got brains from my bio-dad. He's a muckety-muck with Microsoft and flies around with Bill Gates on his plane and I never see him except sometimes on T.V. I got beauty from mom, who was a real killer before she let herself go, and she got me a wonderful dad, who I thought was my REAL dad, until my grandmother enlightened me.

So then, being like, totally stupid, I went on this crusade to find my "real" dad, even though my step dad worshipped the ground I walked on. Well, of course, I found out what an asshole my "real" dad was. All he could think of was that mom and I were after money. Well, by the time I got THAT out of my system, mom and dad were getting divorced. Then my grandfather died. Oh well.

So anyway, my aunt used to be a ghost writer for this sports magazine. She'd interview these jock types. Aunt Marla is small like me. She still skates, and when we're together, they think we're sisters. I can just see her interviewing some jock twice her size, you know, a guard for the Bears or something, 240 pounds. She used to say these guys would have a vocabulary of like, 23 words, 8 of which could not appear in print.

She'd have this interview, and the guy would be like, "Those fuckin' fuckers fucked up all the fuckin' shit, man!" She'd edit it, and in the magazine it would read, "I had a lot of trouble dealing with those people, and I was never really satisfied with my contract." Is that editing, or what?

Anyway, I ALWAYS read over my stuff. It doesn't always help with the typos, because I sort of "fill in" in my brain. I don't LIKE re-reading my stuff. I'm always like, "God! Kristie! That is SO LAME, why did you write it like that?" It DOES help me write better, I think, although I try not to edit stories I have already posted.

So other than Math journal articles, I don't think I'll make it as a professional writer, although I might publish my dissertation, except the NSA is trying to classify part of it because a sharp cookie could use it to help with the factorization of large prime numbers, which an even SHARPER cookie could use to break 64-bit public-key codes. I'm not interested in codes, I'm interested in the density of prime numbers in Lebesque sets, so I'm trying to weasle-word my way out of getting classified, which is the kiss of death in acadamia.

 

[damppanties]

Re: Self-Editing

So other than Math journal articles, I don't think I'll make it as a professional writer...

Ohh, I have no doubt you will. I really don't think anyone could answer that question in such a lengthy manner. You have real talent, but untapped. You just need to sit down one day and write it out of your system. You can do it! You really can!

 

[Guest]

lol.........

Everyonce in a while I do. Especially if I see, or do something that reminds me of a story I've written.

Confession: Sometime's I'll get a feedback email from out of the blue on a really "older" story I wrote. And they tell me how much they enjoyed reading about this or that. And I don't always remember what I wrote in a particular story, so I'll go back and re-read it to see what it was the reader was talking about.

Then I go..."Oh yeah, I (did) like the way I wrote that!"


I remain.......

 

[Sabledrake]

I do ... sometimes it makes me wince and yearn to do a rewrite, sometimes I'm startled because it was better than I expected.

Usually, when I finish a big project like a novel, I experience a sort of letdown, I'm convinced it's crap and I've just wasted the past six months of my life. So I put it away and don't even look at it for at least a month. Then I can go back to it with a fresher eye, for the revision.

Sabledrake

 

[deliciously_naughty]

Re: Self-Editing

so I'm trying to weasle-word my way out of getting classified, which is the kiss of death in acadamia.

Except if you're in my field, which is history, in which case getting on the best seller list is also the kiss of death. God forbid you be critically popular AND popular with the masses.

I love rereading my stuff...I wrote it for me; it gets me hot, and I know exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote it

 

[M.A.Thompson]

All of the time, especially when I am suffering writers block and need to be reminded of my past achievements. It is a double edge sword though as a few post above me have noted because I always find things I want to edit and in the case of my first submission, dreaded typos. Something I like about Satin Slippers over Lit is that authors can edit their submissions on the spot without the hassle of resubmitting. Very cool.

 

[DanielOrme]

Yep, I re-read myself all the time. Reactions bounce between "God, that's the worst line ever written," and "Wow, I'm really good!"

 

[NaughtyMike]

I had to re-read and rewrite the first 10 chapters "On the Block" series. My writings involved the same main character, so I was creating a sexual autobiography. I rewrote the stories to correct grammar, spelling (I picked up an editor), also to add a few lines to the sex scenes, a few puns, and make some minor changes to the facts so the story could logically flow. The main thing I had to change was to make my parents dead in one chapters when I mentioned them, since I killed them off in an earlier like sequence. I also retitled the series as the editors of literotica could never get my title correct, which I write about in my reader's guide in the "How to" section.

Re-reading a story for arousal has limited potentional. Yes, it can be done, but it is like looking at that same Playboy everymonth. It gets old fast.

 

[wildsweetone]

re-reading my own stories is something i need to do. it's overdue for doing.

i'm scared.

i learnt a lesson six or seven years ago. a young boy i was teaching on a one-to-one basis came into my life for a short while. i planned his lessons, i changed his nappy/diaper, i helped him eat. he couldn't speak as normal 5 year olds speak. he had cerebral palsey. his communication was through me only. one day he became very angry and smacked me hard, i didn't understand what he was trying to tell me. that was rare, usually we were very insinc with each other, i could often tell what he needed or wanted before he let me know. but as his teacher, i waited and guided him until he learned an appropriate manner (in a classroom situation) of communication.

anyhow, after 8 weeks of working very very closely with this young man, he died suddenly. i was bereft and discovered he'd become as close to me as one of my own children. not really a good thing for a teacher to admit, but tough, that's the way i work and that's the way i get results.

the trouble was, i hadn't taken the time while he was alive, to sit back and look over my achievements with him. there simply hadn't been the time to do that.

his death taught me that i have to sit down and take stock, and, look back at my achievements.

still, i am scared to re-read my writing.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

I often re-read my own stories, 'cause I write the best stories around here...

Modesty? Isn't that a cartoon????

 

[Justin_Thyme]

Raises his hand shyly, I do. I have learned tho, to confine my rereading to trying to determine character names, etc when preparing to or actually writing a sequel or additional chapter.

Rereading SHOULD be a fun event. Instead I find myself saying, 'How on earth did I miss that typo?' or, perhaps, 'How did I manage to leave that word out?' You know, stuff like that.
What's also bad is that I, too often, catch myself trying to edit or rewrite. I guess there's a way to do that but it involves pulling the story and resubmitting, something I'm loath to do. Mostly because the revised work may well contain as many errors as did the original.
I'm sure having one's great work returned from an editor with errors highlited is not much fun but neither is discovering the things I botched after a story is posted. What makes it doubly distasteful is knowing I read and reread, changed and changed again before submitting.
Perhaps, if I keep at it long enough, I will manage to get things right the first time!
JT

 

[Wicked-N-Erotic]

I'm guilty, I reread mine to get myself in the mood for writing a new one. Sometimes I end a story and then after rereading think, wow, I could have gone this way with it and then end up with a whole new story idea.
Wicked

My Stories

 

[Erlikkhan]

Re: Re: Self-Editing

I love rereading my stuff...I wrote it for me; it gets me hot, and I know exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote it

Says it all... nobody knows what I like better than me.

 

[HomerPindar]

Gee, I am really the odd duck here. I don't go back and reread it, so much as it turns up somewhere and I have to read it to figure out what it is. But then, I tend to write a story in a tablet....loose it in the stack of tablets...and start the next on a computer....only to have four different computers to choose from when it comes to which hard drive has which writing on it.

Ok, so I lack organizational skills. That you didn't ask about

HomerPindar

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Who goes back and re-reads their own stuff, just because

Not me. I'm not into heavy pain. However, I may go over the revised and edited versions.

RF