I don't read my articles once they've been published. Or I try not to. At least not when they first come out. Why? Because there's a lot to lose and nothing to gain. Here are some pros and cons:
Cons:
- I'll just be reminded of the good stuff I had to leave out because I didn't have enough space
- I'll just be reminded of the holes in my story that I didn't have time to fill
- I might spot a clumsy change made by an editor
- I might spot a clumsy mistake made by me (hopefully very, very rarely)
- I'll come away with a general feeling of dissapointment
Pros:
- I might get a cosy glow of satisfaction as I reflect on what a good job I did.
In my experience, the cons always outweigh the pros. If I do read a piece when it is first published, I tend to regret it. Not because it is full of those errors listed in points 1-4, but because of point 5 - that strange, nagging feeling of disappointment.
Anne Enright describes it brilliantly in the Guardian:
"It doesn't matter what you think about your work. This is one of the
weirdest lessons a writer has to learn, that the emotions that push you
to write better, with greater accuracy, truth, verve, wit; the despair
that makes you cast your eyes to the ceiling and then plunge back to
the keyboard; the running pleasure of one good word being followed by a
better; the glee as you set a time bomb ticking in the text; the
glorious megalomania with which you set out to describe and yes!
conquer! the! world! ... are all completely redundant once the piece is
finished. More than redundant. They are dust and ashes. The thing you have
written is a piece of shit. Can I say this louder? And then repeat it
really, really quietly? The thing you have just written is a piece of
shit."
After a decent interval, I will sometimes re-read a published article. Then a different kind of disappointment takes hold. Again, Enright captures it well:
"Five years, say, after you have written some piece of junk; some
fraudulent, spatchcocked, scrap of literary debris, you come across it
again, and you read it in an idle way, and you say, with a terrible
sense of loss and shock, "I used to be able to write. I used to be
quite good. Where's all that gone?"
You just can't win.
(note: the exception to my don't-read-your-own-stuff rule: when writing my first piece for a new client or publication, I check and see what edits they have made)