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Q&A Re-reading and making changes to current work that makes everything worse?

I used to have the same issue. Even if I planned ahead of time, I would read again my previous session and find myself editing it. There were multiple reasons for that. First, in between sessions I...

posted 6y ago by _X_‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-18T21:34:22Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/41727
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T10:43:14Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/41727
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T10:43:14Z (almost 5 years ago)
I used to have the same issue. Even if I planned ahead of time, I would read again my previous session and find myself editing it. There were multiple reasons for that. First, in between sessions I fleshed out certain ideas better, or I came up with new details, or simply one additional line of dialogue. Second, as I continued exercising my writing, my style changed, and the past writings sounded flat and clunky. The latter was a terribly fastidious feeling that I just had to correct.

My advice: don't. Ignore rereading. Just write. Start from where you think you arrived, write the same scene twice if you get confused, but don't look back. You need to accept that until you finish the initial draft every single action that is not writing is just an excuse to procrastinate.

On writing.se there are is quite a number of questions on how to just sit down and write. I found many of them to contain great advice.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-01-29T11:23:15Z (almost 6 years ago)
Original score: 0