So.
Today's suggested question was about if we've ever wanted to go back and rewrite something, right?
For me that's kind of a "yes and no" thing.
Like anyone, I look back at my oldest writing and cringe. But I tend to write exclusively for myself in the sense that most of the things I've ever written have never been put before other people in any context. That being the case, if I ever want to rewrite something, there's nothing stopping me from doing so.
However, for the most part I wouldn't want to because the really old things I've written are things I now don't particularly want to interact with in terms of their story material.
Before I figured out I was asexual and aromantic, I often included heterosexual romance in my writing. Actually, that even continued on for a few years after I figured it out, in fact. But now I prefer to write about same-sex romance, if I include romance at all, so most of my old stuff is something I don't even want to interact with in any way. And since it's not out there being interacted with by anyone else, that's fine. It can continue to rot in digital oblivion. (Or something.)
On the other hand, I have been rewriting--and releasing!--a series of novels I wrote in 2014, so sometimes I do want to go back and rewrite older works. (Okay, if I really wanted to go to older works, I started writing back in the 1990s, so if any of those even still exist on any accessible hard drive, I could dive back into the ultra-cringe of things I wrote when I was still a teenager.) I need to finally get around to finishing up the research for the next rewrite in the series, though. It's hard to find books talking in sufficient detail about Late Bronze Age Mesopotamia...
My best works are ones I wrote for ME. When I was writing for an editor, I always felt the best parts of my work were being trimmed away. Self-pubbing opened up a new world for me.
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