What I notice with a lot of writers when they start is that they put too much importance on any one book. They get hung up on their book as if it will be the only thing they ever do. But if you get into the writing lifestyle you learn there are many more stories to be told.

Most important of all is to write, and then write again, and finishing a book and going on to the next one is essential.

But the opposite can be true too. One of the things that's happening in ebooks is the phenomenon of the more books an author puts out, the better they do. Generally.

But...I can see some of these writers are becoming a bit of a factory. That doesn't mean the books can't be good, but it seems reasonable to assume that the books might be better if they took more time.

I understand the equation. A better book may only be better marginally, but not so much that most people would notice. If the premise or the story doesn't work, spending lots of time on trying to fix it probably isn't the answer. 

I'm trying to re-calibrate my own approach to writing. Since I came back to writing I've both tried to give myself permission to write as fast and as much as I want to, and at the same time, I've tried to tell myself not to settle for "good enough," to always try to put a bit more effort into each book.

Because of that I have about 10 books that have been set aside because they need something more.

Every book is different. Some require more rewriting than others. But I've decided that every book I write from now on will be allowed more time. Not so much in the writing process--that 2000 word a day right to the end of the book plan is perfect.

But no, the time I mull it over before I start, the mulling it over between writing sessions, and most of all the mulling over after I've finished the first draft. My re-calibration is basically to spend as much time after I've finished the first draft as I do actually writing the first draft.

I'm finding small improvements daily. Sometimes bigger improvements. I always have a few suspicions about how a book can be improved; sometimes there is nothing I can do about it, but more often I have to ask myself if disrupting the flow of the story for the change is worth it. And that just gives me an excuse to be intellectually lazy.

Yes, I might fuck up the book by trying to rewrite. But I also might make it much better.

Since I've written so many books, the danger of fucking up a book seems less important than than the possibility of making it better.