Hating Your Own Writing

Looking through my growing list of daily blog-reads this morning, I noticed a comment someone made about how they hated their book too much to read it again. I've seen comments like this before and they always confuse me. I mean, I can almost see hating the editing process. When I was slogging through the zillionth edit of Spectacle, it was like pulling teeth to get my brain to see a way to improve the writing - even in spots where I knew it wasn't coming together the way I wanted. Editing is hard work. But I can't see ever hating the book itself.

Maybe I'm lost in semantics here. Maybe all the writers I've seen, who say they're at a point where they hate their work, are actually saying they're having trouble with the editing process. When I got to that point with Spectacle, I set the book aside. If my own irritation gets in the way, it becomes a circular process. I can't see the problems, so I get frustrated, which makes the problems harder to see... And so on and so forth.

But to hate my babies? Ack. I hope it's just semantics. I can't imagine sitting down at my computer, spending untold hours of time on a project I hated. I mean, even those projects I'm not in love with anymore, haven't drifted into the category of hate. (They're patiently waiting for me to love them again, btw. And maybe someday I will.)

So, what say you? Am I taking the whole hate thing the wrong way, or do you really get to a point where you can't bear to read your work one more time? And if you do get this way, how do you overcome it enough to finish what you started?