Overcoming Bad Work

If you’ve written…well…at all, you’ve written something bad.  Even the most prolific, world-famous authors have crap on their resumes.  Being bad is part of the process.  It’s what you do with “bad” that can make the difference.

In the olden days where traditional publishing companies guarded all the doors and were holding all the keys, “bad work usually stayed in house.  It was either extensively rewritten through the house’s editing process, or it was outright rejected.  Either way, it didn’t see the light of day(or at least for the best authors).

This is where the explosion of the indie market can be detrimental.  Since we’re all usually fans of our own work, especially in the immediate aftermath of finishing, we don’t usually recognize the “bad” in ourselves, so we tend to publish it.  That certainly gets us to market more quickly, but it can also generate a poor reputation before we get the chance to hone our craft into better writing.

First impressions are important.  For example, if I’ve had a good experience at a restaurant, I’ll give it another chance if I later have a bad experience.  However, if I have a poor first experience, I’m unlikely to go back without a great deal of prodding.  Most of the audience is the same way – if you give them crap right off the bat, they will assume all of your stuff, even your later stuff, is crap.

If you write something that stinks, the first, most obvious step is to not publish it.  I have a couple of stinkers, and they won’t see the bookshelf until after massive rewrites.  But sometimes we get caught in the afterglow of finished writing and publish anyway.  If you find yourself with crap out in the world, try to pull it bac.  Unpublish it.  Down the road, once you’ve had success, those few people with your original crap will have collector’s items.

But if you can’t do this, at least don’t publish more crap, especially not quickly.  Pull back and wait to publish something new.  Aside from the objectivity you’ll have more of during a more fresh look, you won’t get the public rolling their eyes and thinking, Oh God, not this schmuck again.  Give the audience time to get over your garbage.  Then blow them away with your next book.  However, you have to blow them away, since although you might get a second chance, you won’t get a third.  And even if your writing improves, no one will buy your stuff to see how much improvement has occurred.