Mopping up the Cringe

There comes a time in every writer’s life when we look at something we wrote years ago, and we can’t help but cringe and shudder. “Omg, what is that? Did I write that? How could I possibly have written/published that? It’s *expletive* awful! What do I do now??”

If you have not published it, all is well. There’s no need to panic. In fact, congratulations! Because if you are able to tell it’s not as good as you thought it was, you are now a better writer than you were when you wrote it. After patting yourself on the back, you may want to go back and revise. Or not. First novels are often set aside. I did with mine. I simply went straight to the second one, using everything I learned from the process. But sure, some first novels can be revived/revised. It’s not always a lost cause.

However, if you’ve already published it, that is a different story.

Recently, after completing Summer Lights and Fall Lanterns, I went back to Silvermist. Reading it after 18 months of a good deal of writing and editing was…eye-opening. In my defence, I wrote Silvermist many years ago, when I was still young and innocent. It was edited by professional editors and published in the small press. However, I can now see every glaring problem with it. And there are many.

Major cringe. Shock and horror. Daiva going, “WTH is this??”, Erica throwing good money back at me. Oh yes, my girls refused to touch it. I pulled it from amazon and determined to revamp the whole 107K, knowing I must now mop up the cringe, but from a higher perspective, calling on all that I’ve learned in the past 18 months.

I want to tell you that Mopping up the Cringe is something that stops happening as you progress and get better at your craft. But that would be lying. Mopping never stops, not if you keep improving.

Let’s keep Mopping up the Cringe. It’s the writer’s version of fighting the good fight. It never stops, and that’s as it should be. Only the ones who get better at their craft feel the cringe. So, yay to all of us who cringe at our earlier work. We have come a long way. Let’s be proud of the progress we have made.

Know that you’re only cringing because you have become a better writer.

C’mon, let’s go mop it up.