They say that no creative endeavour is perfect, and that sooner or later you just need to release it to the world and let it be. It’s advice I’ve taken to heart over the years, and it’s helped me publish posts which might have otherwise lingered for months or even years.
But as much as I understand, appreciate, and live by this wisdom, sometimes it’s hard not to look at an older post and just … cringe …
It doesn’t even have to be that old. I just looked at some posts from just a few months ago, and I cringed so hard I had to rewrite whole paragraphs.
Sometimes it’s just awkward phrasing. Sometimes I reference previous posts without making it clear that I’m referencing something from a previous post. And sometimes I just write something nonsensical, where I’m left thinking “why did you feel the need to say this?”, or “why did you need to say this here, when it would have been more appropriate over there?”
I know that other people have these same feelings about their own writing, and I also know it will never fully go away. But it’d be nice to feel at least a little better about what I’m publishing, so something has to change.
Thankfully, there’s at least one problem that’s easy to fix - I need to stop posting as soon as I’m done writing. Instead, I need to let it sit for a day or two, and then come back and re-read it. Hopefully that will help me catch and tweak some of the worst of it before it goes live.