I find I have to leave some time between when I write or edit a story before I can read it just for the fun of reading a story. Usually this is a few months, sometimes a year or more. Does anyone else have this problem?
I find I have to leave some time between when I write or edit a story before I can read it just for the fun of reading a story. Usually this is a few months, sometimes a year or more. Does anyone else have this problem?
I have the opposite problem. Since I'm often on to the next story, and have little time to reread older stories, it's not such an issue, but if too much time passes, I find I want to rewrite all my old stories, so I generally avoid them rather than investing 3 months in an older story which you can't market to readers who've already read it.
On the other hand, my brother wrote a book of his hunting stories that was well-received (at least locally), and he claims he can't reread it often enough (he's up to about 20 rereads of his own book).
I've read some of my older stories as fresh, though I don't know how long it takes.
Anecdote along those lines from a pro writer. One time, Larry Niven was flying somewhere and forgot to bring anything to read on the plane, so he grabbed a book, without looking, off the airport paperback rack. After reading a few chapters he thought, 'Hmm, this sounds familier, I wonder if I've read it before." So he looked at the cover, and it was one of his.
I've done something similar several times. Title was vaguely familiar, but not the cover, so I bought the book. Part of the way through, I recognized the story - they put a new cover on the book.