One Bad Apple, One Bad Chapter

I saw this on Instagram and I’ve seen it before on Facebook, Twitter, everywhere. I saw it again tonight and thought, that’s very true. The elusive ‘They’ says that one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. Honestly? I’ve never seen that actually happen (and if you crush all of the apples into cider, that little bit of bad makes the cider oh so delicious). You should be more worried about that one rotten potato turning the rest of the bag to mush, however. Ahem.

Anyway…. There’s always that point in writing that you feel the entire thing sucks, that last 500 words sucks, that last chapter is the most god awful thing ever to be typed or written, a huge waste of paper, etc. While you can go back and apologize and make amends for mistakes in reality, being an author is awesome. You can rewrite. Did you torture that character enough or should they go through another horrible thing before they get the pot of gold? Did the pot of gold end up being the thing that they really wanted? What the heck do they need that pot of gold so badly for? Question everything you’ve written, once, twice, thrice. However, don’t beat the dead horse, it’s not worth the jailtime. After a certain point you need a fresh set of eyes and that means sending it on to have someone look it over for you. 

Revise, Revise, Revise. (With breaks in between, of course!)