"I try not to worry about rewriting books that worked well the first time. I'm too busy writing new books to worry about things that are already in print"
About this Quote
Revision culture can turn a finished book into a permanent construction site, and Laurell K. Hamilton is basically refusing to pick up the hard hat. Her line draws a bright boundary between art as living product and art as lived process: once a book has found its readers, she treats it less like a canvas to keep tinkering with and more like a time-stamped record of who she was and what the story needed then.
The intent is practical, but the subtext is a subtle flex. “Worked well the first time” isn’t just confidence; it’s a reminder that publishing is already a gauntlet of drafts, edits, and market pressures. By the time something is “in print,” it has survived a committee of taste: editors, copyeditors, beta readers, sales expectations, even cover meetings. Her refusal to revisit reads like resistance to the modern itch to “update” everything, whether that’s an author’s stylistic regrets or a shifting cultural weather report.
Context matters: Hamilton writes in genre fiction, where momentum is currency and readers often want the next installment more than a director’s-cut overhaul of the last. The phrase “too busy” frames creativity as a forward-facing job, not a nostalgic loop. There’s also an implied defense against the kind of online second-guessing that can hound popular writers: you can argue with the past all day, but she’s already on deadline with the future.
It works because it’s both permission and provocation: stop fetishizing perfection, keep making things.
The intent is practical, but the subtext is a subtle flex. “Worked well the first time” isn’t just confidence; it’s a reminder that publishing is already a gauntlet of drafts, edits, and market pressures. By the time something is “in print,” it has survived a committee of taste: editors, copyeditors, beta readers, sales expectations, even cover meetings. Her refusal to revisit reads like resistance to the modern itch to “update” everything, whether that’s an author’s stylistic regrets or a shifting cultural weather report.
Context matters: Hamilton writes in genre fiction, where momentum is currency and readers often want the next installment more than a director’s-cut overhaul of the last. The phrase “too busy” frames creativity as a forward-facing job, not a nostalgic loop. There’s also an implied defense against the kind of online second-guessing that can hound popular writers: you can argue with the past all day, but she’s already on deadline with the future.
It works because it’s both permission and provocation: stop fetishizing perfection, keep making things.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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