Revisiting
So my fic archive is pretty much complete, if not completely up-to-date -- I need to post the stories I wrote in June and July still -- with one huge exception.*
A Guardian's Legacy.
Converting and reposting 46 chapters is not a small task, but once I get started it should go quickly enough -- it only took me a couple of days to post all 35 chapters of Death Shall Have No Dominion, even with the formatting errors I had to fight, and by now I have the conversion process down cold. But that was just a straight re-post, except for fixing a typo here and there. I have this idea that I ought to do a no-holds-barred edit of AGL from beginning to end: tighten a few things up, tweak some of the characterization, and so forth. I like to think I've grown as a writer quite a bit in the last three years; there is a lot to improve this story. But that would be a huge project, and kind of daunting. So I keep putting it off.
So the question is, should I bother? I know I could make the story better, but that's true of everything I've ever written, and I didn't do serious edits on any of the others. Would it be better to just repost it, perhaps fixing egregious errors but otherwise leaving it as a historic document, a testament to where I started and a touchstone for how far I've come? On the other hand, much as I've enjoyed so many of the stories I've written, AGL is still my baby. It was the first, the longest, the most all-consuming. Shouldn't it be the best it can be? And the idea of diving back into it after all this time is really appealing.
I also still feel like my writing is still very sluggish. I'm producing more than I was, but that's not saying much. Almost every story I've posted in the last while is a old WIP I've dusted off and polished up. And I'm not sure whether spending lots time on editing an old piece is a good way to jumpstart the urge to sit down and write on a regular basis, or whether it's just a way of avoiding the issue.
Thoughts, oh ye many writers and editors on my flist?
*This is not strictly true because I also haven't brought over "Aftermath" yet, mostly to avoid the question of having an active WIP on my archive site, since I'm not exactly sure how I want to handle that. And kind of avoiding it entirely. Damn you story, why won't you write yourself like all the other big stories did?
A Guardian's Legacy.
Converting and reposting 46 chapters is not a small task, but once I get started it should go quickly enough -- it only took me a couple of days to post all 35 chapters of Death Shall Have No Dominion, even with the formatting errors I had to fight, and by now I have the conversion process down cold. But that was just a straight re-post, except for fixing a typo here and there. I have this idea that I ought to do a no-holds-barred edit of AGL from beginning to end: tighten a few things up, tweak some of the characterization, and so forth. I like to think I've grown as a writer quite a bit in the last three years; there is a lot to improve this story. But that would be a huge project, and kind of daunting. So I keep putting it off.
So the question is, should I bother? I know I could make the story better, but that's true of everything I've ever written, and I didn't do serious edits on any of the others. Would it be better to just repost it, perhaps fixing egregious errors but otherwise leaving it as a historic document, a testament to where I started and a touchstone for how far I've come? On the other hand, much as I've enjoyed so many of the stories I've written, AGL is still my baby. It was the first, the longest, the most all-consuming. Shouldn't it be the best it can be? And the idea of diving back into it after all this time is really appealing.
I also still feel like my writing is still very sluggish. I'm producing more than I was, but that's not saying much. Almost every story I've posted in the last while is a old WIP I've dusted off and polished up. And I'm not sure whether spending lots time on editing an old piece is a good way to jumpstart the urge to sit down and write on a regular basis, or whether it's just a way of avoiding the issue.
Thoughts, oh ye many writers and editors on my flist?
*This is not strictly true because I also haven't brought over "Aftermath" yet, mostly to avoid the question of having an active WIP on my archive site, since I'm not exactly sure how I want to handle that. And kind of avoiding it entirely. Damn you story, why won't you write yourself like all the other big stories did?