I Love Reading My Own Writing

And I’m ok with that

I’m also inordinately fond of the sound of my own voice, so there’s that.

Seriously, though, I’ll be checking something on my phone and then I think, oh, I’ll see if anything’s happening on Medium and then I see that aleXander hirka or James Finn or Michelle Marie Warner or Tommy Ueland or Zita Fontaine or, hallelujah!, Roz Warren has clapped on that killer piece I published yesterday or something else I’ve done and so I have to see what that’s about and I do and the next thing you know, yep, I’m just a-reading my own piece beginning to end and thinking, hey, that’s not bad. Not bad at all.

I don’t just do this with articles I publish online, either. I also re-read and re-re-read emails that I send to friends, those catch-up emails? Yeah, those. I’ve been writing more of those lately and even after I’ve sent them, I enjoy pulling up my Sent folder and giving them another read.

Do I find mistakes?

Occasionally. So? What am I? Saint English Major who can’t misspell words or mangle a subject/verb agreement? I think not.

Do I go back and correct them? Not in the emails, no. What would be the point in that? But in the articles, yes. And then, even if it’s the 18th reading (why are you looking at me like that?), and I think of a better way to phrase something, hell yes, I edit that puppy again.

My dark and ulterior motive

Simple. Seeing what you thought of the piece. Oh, make no mistake, I’ll still go off the deep end with just about anything I’ve written (ask me about re-reading journal entries, especially one year to the day later!), but I also like to go back to those girls several days or weeks later just to see how they’re doing. See, once you’ve read it and I’m coming along after you I’m reading it with a slightly different take. It’s like I’m reading it through your lens.

Isn’t it fascinating to see what readers have highlighted? I dig the claps, no argument there, but the highlights, the responses, and the little private notes are like crunchy little pieces of gold I can eat.

For example, we got up early today to avoid the time-suck of, ahem, Medium and its ilk. We quickly dressed, inhaled some breakfast and took a bus down 5th Avenue and got off at 59th Street, right by the Plaza Hotel and Bergdorf Goodman (whose windows are still pretty damned nifty, pandemic be damned). From there we headed into Central Park. We’d brought our books and found a suitably secluded, shady bench. We read. AleXander stretched out and napped a little. And while he napped, I (what else) checked in on how things were going on Medium.

My piece about drunk dreams had begun to pick up momentum which made me happy. I saw that a couple more people had clapped on it. I checked on that and then, hey I’m there with the story open right?, so I read the piece again. This makes about fifteen times I’ve read it including all the re-reading before publishing to proof TF out of it. And, know what?, it holds up. I still like it.

AleXander woke up and we had an interesting visit with a curious pigeon. It landed on the back of the park bench between us and was still there when we left after twenty minutes of hanging out together. It took a while to get home, but when we did, we were ready for our now-traditional pandemic nap and that was it. At around 5 pm we got up and AleXander went off to make “lunch” (dinner hour is now a very continental 9 pm) and what did I do?

All together now: went to check Medium!

I’ve got enough of a back catalog of work now that instead of just posting my most current piece on the various online promotional pages I frequent, I always delve into the past and re-introduce older pieces that deserve more love. And I was tickled to see a private note from one of my fave writers here, Dawn Bevier, on this piece:

The answer, of course, is “yes”. Yes, I am at times very much a jealous, small-minded jerk and in the darkest recesses of my lizard brain, I like it that way. The private note? It’s private!

And yes, of course, I did read that piece again and enjoyed it tremendously. If I saw me on the subway, when it starts running again, I’d want to sit down and have a nice conversation with myself.

I like the way my mind works.

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