Rewrites, rewrites!

Trent Walters in s1ngularity criticism said something interesting that I thought could apply to my rewriting at the moment:

Criticism is the principle to apply after the creative process has taken its course through to the end of a story. Some people call this switching the editor (or critic) on and off. While this is important to keep in mind, I don't think one should ever fully turn either the creator or the editor-critic destroyer off. A story's mythical "soul" can be revised out if the creator isn't there to inform the aesthetics. And if you leave the creator burbling without the destroyer's presence in the distant background, you're likely ramble or circle the woods lost. [italics mine]

I feel this quote is kinda apt right now since I'm revising one of my short stories for a more SFF-feel. But I also thought it was destroying the original concept of the story.

Ah well, I won't know if this is good or bad until I let [identity-protected] edit this to see if it works or not.

Here's another good quote from the fabulist Jeff Ford in Matthew Cheney's The Mumpsimus:

It's my belief that when most of the writers you mentioned wrote their works, they were not "experiments" but instead passionate expressions of each artist's vision. A good reader can smell an "experiment" a mile away. When the vision dictates the form and the form no matter how different must be itself, that's not an experiment, that's writing a story. Much value is placed on "experiment" these days but less is placed on the true expression of a vision. Some of the greatest of these appear completely traditional, devoid of a recognizeable style, clear as water. An experiment is a test, as a reader I want the thing itself. [ditto]

I hope, in my writer's heart of hearts, that when I'm experimenting, it's my vision-- and not a test-- that informs my story.

*cracks whip*

Back to work, slave...!