I live alone and work alone. I do not have an editor who would read and judge my articles. Unlike other authors, I also do not have a wife with whom I would discuss my work.
This has its advantages and disadvantages.
The primary benefit is that I can be totally honest. I do not have to be politically correct. I am not subject to any censorship.
So, in one way, I can consider myself lucky.
But to be outside of any control can also be a handicap. Nobody can tell me reliably, which of my articles are good, and which one are not.
Sometimes, I can put down a grand idea in a few paragraphs, and everything fits. And sometimes, what I produce is off the mark.
My best pieces have all been written in a single go, from start to finish, without second thoughts. And the same is true for those pieces that are over the top or below my standard of quality.
People who do not write have little awareness of how difficult it is to judge one's own work.
It's as if an author gets desensationalized for his own sentences, just as everybody gets desensationalized for one's own odors.
This is why in a professional setting, authors have editors.
I do not have an editor. The best I can do is to reread an article after a few months, when my brain has sufficiently rewired itself. Only then can I recognize what is expressed well, and what is just quatsch.
I have introduced version numbers for all my articles. A piece with a version number 1.0 should be considered a draft. I have never even read it again after I published it. At the time I wrote it, I may have considered the piece important enough to publish it. But many of my 1.0 versions are totally rewritten after a few months.
I do want to formulate a consistent ideology for a world in which optimal sexual experience, followed by a gentle death, is recognized as guiding principle.
I cannot do this in one sitting. I sometimes work on one portion, and at other times on another portion of my ideology. As I go along, I often discover discrepancies. I try my best to make them fewer.
