Self Hatred

October 28th, 2009Blog2 comments

I juggle several projects at once, so after I finish writing a first draft of one thing I immediately have to switch gears and begin doing rewrites on another. So often I have to go back to earlier projects and drafts in order to do rewrites and sharpen them up. This is especially true right now.

I get a real pain in my ass when I look at earlier drafts of mine. They seem so hokey and crappy. When I look at a draft that needs work, all the boring bits and errors and crap stick out like pins and needles. This especially goes for my earliest work as a writer. Sometimes it’s really hard to even look at the stuff — it’s so schlocky to me. But look at it and improve it I must.

Today I realized something after reading a post on John Gruber’s Daring Fireball about the iPhone as a platform. On the iPhone’s place in the “smartphone wars” and Apple’s push to continually improve it, Gruber writes:

“Right. You know who thinks the iPhone 3GS stinks? Steve Jobs. No one is working harder on an “iPhone 3GS killer” than Apple.”

This made me realize that I hate my earliest work and my early drafts for a reason: It’s because I’ve grown since I’ve written them. I’ve discovered my mistakes and learned from them. My burning hatred for the problems these drafts have is directly proportional to my desire to improve them and make them great.

In other words, I should embrace my hatred — it’s a sign of my desire to be better and do better. I might not know what the solutions are right now, but god dammit, I want to find out. And I will.

If I didn’t hate my earliest stuff — if I didn’t think that these drafts needed work and I was totally satisfied with them — then I’d know that there’s a serious problem going on. That is clue number one that you’re a marshmallowy, lackadaisical bum who expects good things to happen without needing to put in the work.

It’s like people who say, “Oh, my high school years were the best years of my life.” If that’s so, then I got a pro-tip for you my friend: Your life sucks.