A year ago, I drafted a novel which I thought would make a good first publication. I revised it and then did what I always do after I write a thing - I put it in a drawer. The longer the writing, the longer it hangs out in the drawer and this was one of the longest things I'd written all at once.
Fast forward 7 months. I pulled it out of hiding, thinking I had an easy edit and quick ebook to publish.
Boy, was I wrong.
When I reread that draft, I realized I had more than just proofreading to do. I hadn't counted on learning so much about writing during these last several months. I didn't realize how much more depth my characters would need, how many ways I could layer my story, add more meaningful conflicts, build in more than token diversity, and generally write a much better story than I'd intended when I first started out. That drawer kept me from putting out something I thought was good but would have been, at best, amateurish and, at worst, mediocre. More importantly, and unbeknownst to me, my story was churning in my subconscious, so when I put pen to paper again, I found had so much more to say.
So I guess the takeaway would be to give your drafts time to breathe. I put that novel in the drawer because I knew I was instinctively too passionate to look at it at the moment. I had to back away and cool off so I could be an objective reader. And I'm glad I did. I know now, when I send it to my beta readers and to my editor (yes, I'm going to pay for a professional edit, Lord help me), I'm going to end up with a product I can be proud of.
Like we do with friends and lovers, give your draft some space, a chance to breathe and to become. Let it sit in your drawer and in your mind without fear. Release it so it can come back to you as hopefully something more wonderful than before.