You know it's time...

[mrissa]

...to stop revising your book and work on something else when you start addressing yourself as "DUMBASS" in the margins.

Uff da mai.

Comments

[adriennelily.livejournal.com]

I do that too. I also leave myself notes like (what the hell were you thinking here?)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Mine in that vein are usually more terse: "Huh?"

I've used a lot of "Show!" and "Huh?" in this editing pass.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

Having been there more than once I agree that any time you start calling yourself names and beating yourself up about your writing, it is a good time to stop!

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

Give it a few decades. You know you've been working on editing one of your own novels for reissue for too long when you feel like you've been in a knock-down-drag-out fight with a two-decades-younger version of yourself . . . and aren't entirely sure you won.

(I have to go through the pageproofs for the Baen Guardians reissues, and it's a combination of a lot of fun and some close-to-physical agony. Thank God I've only got one more omnibus to do; I can find other things to do that are more fun, and I wouldn't mind skipping the agony.)

That said, you know the old saw about what's necessary to make a great painting, I suppose?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Er, paint?

Nah.

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

1. An artist and
2. Somebody to shoot him when it's actually finished.