I'm at that point with mine, too, actually ... reading it and wondering "is this REALLY going to appeal to my readers or does this just seem fantastic and emotionally challenging and spot-on because I wrote it?"
I think we all get to that point in our writing at some point where we've lived with it for so long that we start getting overly critical of it and even can't stand the sight of it for awhile.
When I find scenes like that I cut/paste them into a document that I just title "Reworkables" and leave them for later. I don't touch it for a few months. Then I go back in and really take a look at the scenes, at where I wanted them to go, at what I thought they would accomplish and see if it actually works after some time away from it. And a lot of times it does ... it just needed time to breathe away from my critical eye. I recently added one of the scenes from the "Reworkables" document back in to the manuscript and it got me over a huge case of writer's block.
I guess what I'm trying to say is don't do too much slashing and hacking just now ... do some cutting and pasting and tweaking and reworking and see what happens. Come back to the reworkables scenes later and see where they take you. I bet that they're valuable to the story ... you just can't see how so right at the moment.
I hope you start feeling better about your work soon. But know this ... you are a fantastic writer who has no reason whatsoever to doubt her work or her creative prowess.
no subject
I think we all get to that point in our writing at some point where we've lived with it for so long that we start getting overly critical of it and even can't stand the sight of it for awhile.
When I find scenes like that I cut/paste them into a document that I just title "Reworkables" and leave them for later. I don't touch it for a few months. Then I go back in and really take a look at the scenes, at where I wanted them to go, at what I thought they would accomplish and see if it actually works after some time away from it. And a lot of times it does ... it just needed time to breathe away from my critical eye. I recently added one of the scenes from the "Reworkables" document back in to the manuscript and it got me over a huge case of writer's block.
I guess what I'm trying to say is don't do too much slashing and hacking just now ... do some cutting and pasting and tweaking and reworking and see what happens. Come back to the reworkables scenes later and see where they take you. I bet that they're valuable to the story ... you just can't see how so right at the moment.
I hope you start feeling better about your work soon. But know this ... you are a fantastic writer who has no reason whatsoever to doubt her work or her creative prowess.
*hugs*