Hello everyone! I was just wondering how long people let their works sit before going to edit them or work on the next draft of your work. I'm mostly just curious about what other's do and maybe why the wait the time they do. I'm also not sure how long to let my own work sit before I go back to editing.
I typically wait a few weeks, just to get some space between myself and the sentence-level stuff. Grammatically, my drafts are very clean. It's the rhythm, description, nuance, imagery, symbolism, dialogue, etc. that needs some time to cool down before I can hammer it into something presentable (sometimes). The structural, more macro concerns, sometimes take a bit longer, sometimes they aren't necessary. When a story needs a macro-level overhaul, I try to give it enough time to feel fresh. I have a few stories that I've revisited way too many times over the course of two years. The various iterations are all very different but they sprouted from a core image. In the downtime, I work on other things. I try to always have something going, but that's not always the case. I think it's just a matter of trial and error to see what works for you. I'm sure you'll get a slew of different answers here, so the best advice would be to do what feels right for now, then when/if you discover it's not working, try something else! I'm not sure I could have learned how long to wait without trial and error.
