April 4, 2012 · 10:19 am

your skin is not so tough

Some stories have such an excessive sentimentality that as soon as you’ve finished writing them you’re ashamed & wish you hadn’t; in fifteen years time you see their value. Other stories feel hard & pure at time of writing but fifteen years later seem so smug, wilful & aggressive-defensive that you’re full of shame & wish you hadn’t even started them. & some stories written fifteen years ago seem to have been written by someone older & a lot less lively than you are now, which is a puzzle.

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7 Responses to your skin is not so tough

  1. Ina Grix
    April 4, 2012 at 10:29 am

    See? How can anyone not trust you with their life when you say something like this.

    As we used to say in Autotelia, I’d let this guy take my kids to the swimming pool.

  2. adamrobertswriter
    April 4, 2012 at 10:30 am

    Horace advised writers to write, leave their work seven years, then revise and publish. Fifteen years is an even better idea.

  3. uzwi
    April 4, 2012 at 10:34 am

    Hi Ina Grix. I’d never trust a writer with anything.

    Adam: if only we had the confidence…

  4. Joe Pineda
    April 4, 2012 at 10:55 am

    It’s a very brief but well thought out reflection. I’m always afraid that in five or ten years’ time I will look at my first novel like it’s some kind of bastard child, the result of carelessly whooping and screaming what a writer I am.

    I guess only time holds the answer.

  5. julianr
    April 5, 2012 at 6:05 am

    Just no pleasing you, is there?

  6. uzwi
    April 5, 2012 at 8:54 am

    Not in this world…

  7. markreep
    April 5, 2012 at 5:19 pm

    Time does lend perspective. Sometimes surprising. I see more worth in some of my older work now than I did five or ten years ago. We like to think of most recent as our best, etc, but that also leads to devaluing earlier. Wish I hadn’t discarded so much of mine now.