Return of the Rewrite

In a way, I understand ol' George Lucas... Okay, maybe not his necessity for gangly, scene-stealing space aliens with Jamaican accents...

And, all right, also not leading men who whine and sulk more the whole cast of Toddlers and Tiaras when the airbrush machine clogs...

And yes, definitely not making the lead female fall in love with said sulky-whiny guy, when we all know she was babysitting him, like, two years before... Wiping his nose when he got Endor Sinus and changing his sheets when they got all Dagobah from too many juice boxes before bed.

I mean, I don't get any of that. But I do I understand George's need to rewrite his own film history.

A couple of years ago, I'd done a short story using two of the characters from my humorous sci-fi series. I wrote it, rewrote it, re-rewrote, ran out of re-'s, took a break, bought more, re-re-rewrote it, put the bag of re-'s away for a rainy day, and finally, I was happy with it.

Then I put it on this blog. I shared it with the masses. And all seemed well in this part of space.

Until... (picture that "Until..." in yellow letters, sailing out into the distant galaxy) I stumbled across the story again and I realized that when it came to the tale's quality, I had been more delusional than Baby Jane dancing on the beach in her frillies.

I mean, my God, I called that a sentence? And what was I doing with adverbs exactly, collecting them for resale like Beanie Babies? Plus, I had more Exposition than Comicon!

I COULD DO BETTER.

It is both wondrous and galling to discover that the one thing that shows true learning and personal growth over time is the same thing you look back on and want to bury in a deep, sandy hole inhabited by a hungry space worm.

So I get you, George. You can't change everything, so you make the little tweaks. And more little tweaks.

But eventually, we all have to to let it go and move on. I spent two days editing to the best of my current skills and now, once again I must let it float with the yellow lettering. (The story is here, if you want to check it out.)

I just hope if I meet it again in twenty years, it's held up all right. And not trying to wear a metal bikini.