I remember the gist of what I’ve written in the first draft, over three books, but by the time I get around to editing something, it might be a year or more since I wrote it. This means I’ve usually forgotten the details, and it’s almost like reading and editing someone else’s work.
This is ideal, because it’s sufficiently interesting to keep me focused and also to sit in judgement of it from a more objective position than I’m in when I’ve just finished writing something.
I write very quickly, then I want to close the file and the laptop and walk away and do something else. I can’t sit, tweaking the thing, straight away. It has to fade a little, enough to seem fresh again, for me to view it with fresh eyes, when my attachment to the words has weakened because they left my brain so long ago, their gestation there is but an echo in my recall.
Writing three books at once is therefore optimal, for me. Write three, edit three, edit them all again, write synopses, then publish. Rinse and repeat. I think that’s my plan now, for the rest of my life.