@softzosan replied to your post “i want to go back and edit this fic of mine and...”:
I felt the same about a fic of mine a few days ago!! There's a couple of things you can do: go the "fuck perfection" route, post it as it is and realise that it's still GOOD cause it's ART YOU MADE!!! It's something you created out of passion!! That in itself is BEAUTIFUL and it doesn't have to be perfect! Done is better than perfect! Or you could sleep on it and try editing on another day. sometimes just one night can make a huge difference in how you look at your fic. Another option would be to ask someone for advice/do some beta reading! That has helped me immensely before... if you want, I could have a look at it!
oh thank you for the nice reply!!! the thing is i already posted that fic a few months ago lol, i just never went back to edit it after posting (i usually post it and leave it for a day then go back to do a final edit bc i always catch Something) but for this fic it kind of just. not hurt necessarily but was too raw to touch? especially since i spent so much time on it (15 months for a 20k fic!!!!) which was honestly unnecessarily long (i think a big part of it was because i wouldn't actually finish a first draft - i would write 1/3 of a chapter and just edit and re-edit that section forever instead of continuing to write the rest). like i agonised over almost every line. i did get the first chapter beta-read while i was writing/editing the 2nd and 3rd chapter. but when i finally finished writing/editing all of it i was so sick of it by that point that i didn't ask my friend to beta, just posted it on ao3. and i think a part of me being reluctant to go back and read/edit it because 1. i don't want to cringe at my own writing (and i know i will), 2. i need to restrain myself from editing my old stuff bc if i did that too much then new stuff would never get written and my wip pile is huge, 3. if i started editing it i might just start rewriting whole sections lol
i also, to some extent, hesitate to edit it, because i think even with the parts i don't find satisfactory, the fic is like a snapshot into how i was as a writer at the time...and the whole fic writing process taught me a lot about writing fic so all the feelings about that is also bound up in the fic itself and it's all very messy so i can't disentangle myself from it
anyway. sorry for the essay lol. the sentiment is appreciate, and i def try to carry that mindset when writing fic in general!!