After you write for a while, you’ll read something you wrote months or years ago and think, “What on earth was I thinking?!”

If what you think is a total dog didn’t get any farther than a journal or a few paragraphs on your computer, hang on to it and don’t worry about it. Many times we have to write complete garbage to get to where the gold is. I still believe that no writing is ever wasted, even if you think you probably were wasted when you wrote it.

If your imagined dog got loose in the wild, either by being published or because a client paid you, taking it out of your portfolio or just letting it go are always options. Often what you wrote isn’t as bad as you think, though. Good writers are their own worst critics.

Right now I’m dealing with what I think is particularly frustrating. When you go to edit or rewrite the next version of something a client paid you for in the past and you fully believe it’s not worth the pixels that gave their lives for it in the first place, then you get really depressed. I’m rewriting a short software help library right now that makes me question my sanity from when we originally wrote it.

It’s challenging material to document, but it’s even worse when you wonder whether you should check yourself into the writers mental hospital for being the one who committed this stuff to the screen. It’s sad when the most important thing isn’t releasing the software but making sure this gets rewritten well and quickly so in case I’m struck dead by a car, this stuff won’t still be out there as part of my dubious life story.

Postscript – I did get over this, accepted it as a learned lesson, and plowed into a rewrite. Every passionate writer has to go through this progression of emotions. You go back to the page and work at it; you have no other choice. You’re a writer after all, and not going back to it is like giving up breathing.

Now, back to it!