Rewriting to Perfection

Rewriting is both necessary and expected of all authors. We read our first draft, erase a good portion of it, modify the storyline, rewrite critical passages, move dialogue, drop in more descriptive text, take out superfluous sentences, and then move on…only to come back and do it all over again.
 
"By the time I am nearing the end of a story, the first part will have been reread and altered and corrected at least one hundred and fifty times. I am suspicious of both facility and speed. Good writing is essentially rewriting. I am positive of this." — Roald Dahl
 
Sliding into retirement, I decided to re-read all four of my manuscripts within the Remy Lane Mysteries because I finally had time to only focus on my writing skills. That divine pleasure turned into a tortuous hell. Within my second manuscript, The Tide Turns, I fell into the hamster’s wheel of rewrites. When I first wrote the story, I spent time on multiple rewrites before moving on to pen the next two stories in the series. I was utterly shocked by the obvious need for improvements when I came back to this mystery.

​I took out my big pink eraser.
 
At some point, I’ve moved from rewriting to perfectionism. I’ve been chasing after the prime paragraphs, the sharpest descriptions, the crispest dialogues, and the exemplary adjectives for the past three weeks. I’m second guessing myself and cheating my readers as they’ll never get a chance to fall into this story if I don’t let it go! I need to close this manuscript to still enjoy the craft of writing and simply move on. Time to dive into research on self-publishing while seeking a few fresh beta-readers.
 
This experience makes me wonder if Agatha Christie was ever satisfied with her published work.