Does the desire to re-write your first published book ever go away?

What's happening is that you're hyperaware that people are reading and judging your work. Because of this, you're becoming self conscious of your writing.

Are you not happy with what you wrote?

As you grow in your craft, you become aware of prior errors and know you would have written it differently with your more advanced knowledge.

Recognize it for what it is: the advancement of your skill.

The desire to edit never goes away. Just concentrate on making the NEXT one better with what you've learned.

Rechan,

I've never been published, but if you don't mind, I'd like to put in my 2 cents. For some reason, people don't count writers as artists, but they are. You create things, sometimes out of nothing. I've read that many artists (painters) retouch and redo their paintings over and over again. In the respect, you would be in the same company as DaVinci and Vermeer. As you grow, you're perspective changes. What looked one way as a young man looks different years later. And why not make changes? There are director's cuts and extended versions of many films. I listened to a talk by Stephen King once. By all accounts, we would all agree that he is a successful writer. However, I'm sure there are some things he would like to change about his earlier stories, Like Salem's Lot. Change is fine, as long as you remain true to your elf. All the best!

I don't have the desire to go back and do wholesale edits of earlier work. If I read it I'll often think "ugh" or "yikes, that's awkward" and know I'd do it differently now. But I don't like to retread old ground. By the time I've written it, done my edits, done more edits, done rounds of edits with the publisher I am 100% done with the damn thing and while I'll read bits of it again later I don't want to work on it again.

It's not just the craft matters either. It's the ideas. You grow and change so much in just a few years - especially when you're a writer and ideas are your business - that stories and ideas from several years ago can seem kind of immature and half-baked, so merely polishing up the prose of that story isn't going to satisfy you anyway.

Take what you learned and always move forward, I say.

archangel said:

...I listened to a talk by Stephen King once. By all accounts, we would all agree that he is a successful writer. However, I'm sure there are some things he would like to change about his earlier stories, Like Salem's Lot. Change is fine, as long as you remain true to your elf. All the best!

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I've been true to my elf since Legolas first rode onto screen in Fellowship of the Ring.

There are things I would change about my books, but for the most part I agree with Becky. They are what they are, and I'd rather count past missteps as a learning experience and move on.

That said, I've learned a valuable lesson over the past few weeks. I've been reading one of my books out loud to someone else, a chapter a day, and have found a handful of things that look fine on paper but are not when read out loud. Like places where a dialogue tag is really needed to clarify who is speaking, the occasional awkwardly-constructed sentence, stuff like that. Only one typo, though.

I'm now determined to read my WIP out loud at some point during my edits. I've read that advice for years, but always thought the way I hear things in my head was good enough. It isn't!

Becky Black said:

By the time I've written it, done my edits, done more edits, done rounds of edits with the publisher I am 100% done with the damn thing and while I'll read bits of it again later I don't want to work on it again.

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I know what you mean. Two or three rounds of intensive editing with my editor, two more rounds with the final line editor, read through it one last time, then read through it again before it comes out in paperback... I love the book, but the thought of working on it again would drive me crazy.

Got 20 stories published so far and that first one still bugs me. No, not the quality of the story and voice, rather the damn typos and formatting errors. Still received 5 star reviews but several cited the mistakes which twisted a throne in my side each time. Taught me a big lesson: take that ERRATA mighty serious.

I think my first book is the best I could ever have written it.
I worked on it for many years, and I tried to make it as close to my perception of the world, both in style and in content, as I could.
If there's anything wrong with it, it's things that are wrong with me and those are part of me, too.
I hope you don't think I'm being arrogant, I do think this is true.