Writer's Delusions

I've come to a single conclusion this week: for the past six months I have been utterly delusional.

I honestly thought my manuscript of 'In a Besieged City' wasn't bad. In fact I thought it was quite good. But it appears to have gained 8,000 words from nowhere, and a lot of drivel. Even the first chapter needed work. I've had to rewrite a whole draft, because I was scanning over it the other day and realised it was not up to the standard I thought it was.

But having read back over what I've edited, it seems much, much better. In fact there's some brilliant writing in there that I didn't have before. Could it simply be that I've got better in the last six months? Or didn't I edit it properly to begin with? I could have sworn I did. I went over it about 4 times, really slowly. I checked every sentence, every bit of puctuation. But it all seems so mundane and juvenile now I look at it. Ugh.

I've fixed it though, so I think I've averted disaster. I just should have waited before sending it off to any agents. It's a good job I only sent it off to four before I had an epiphany and realised. Not that it was dreadful before, just not polished to the standard I expect of myself. It could also be because I've got more tone to my writing from my newest novel, so 'In a Besieged City' seems to lack it.

The initial realisation though was like the titanic sinking-utter disaster, sunk to the bottom of the ocean. But then I realised I knew just how to make it better. Good. Lifeboats ho!