Pink Think: “Remorse: beholding heaven and feeling hell.” – George A. Moore
Photo by inkygirl at Flickr
It’s a running joke in our family that for every five things I buy, I return six. I get buyer’s remorse bad. Especially with clothes. I leave tags on my clothes until I wear them and am sure I’m going to like them. Even though I spend two hours in the dressing room trying them on.
My husband tolerates my buyer’s remorse pretty well, so long as I don’t ask him to return something. It’s my writer’s remorse that he dreads.
Invariably, after each story I file with a newspaper or magazine, after some blog posts, after online submissions, I indulge in a midnight post-mortem:
Did I do okay?
Was that too negative?
Did my reporting seem balanced?
Maybe I should have…
What if no one ever will want to be interviewed by me after this?
***
Two days ago, after I pushed the send button on a story for a newspaper, I wanted to recall it. I had writer’s remorse bad.
For a long while now, I have been feeling a little out-of-depth with the topic, and to overcompensate, I spent more time than usual with a subject, establishing a good relationship that is ideal in some ways, but in some ways more difficult.
He and his wife were confiding things in me that I’ve had to decide whether or not to include in the article. It would have been easier if I could just see them as article subjects instead of people with feelings.
I filed my article late at night, then rose at dawn, tweaked some words and re-submitted to my editor, who fortunately was not snooty about it. My revised article still was honest, but not as harsh as I’d initially written it.
The only thing is the article seems a little disjointed to me because I did edits on the fly, and didn’t focus on good transitions. Oh well. At least I can sleep better.
Stories I’ve recalled and resubmitted are few and far between. You’d think after twenty years of writing for newspapers, it’d get easier.
***
For all my remorseful tendencies, there is a bright spot. Also two days ago, I got an email from another editor asking me if I have anything to update in a travel piece I submitted at the start of the year.
I had forgotten what I had written, and read the piece with fresh eyes. Amazingly enough, I was content with how it was. In fact, it made me smile and shiver, reliving my experience when I visited that Philippine historical fort.
When I pushed the button to say “Fine as is,” it felt real good.
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