Manuscripts

When it comes right down to it, most of my time is put into my books and their manuscripts. More recently, I finished the third edit on a 65,000-word book. Halfway through the fourth edit, I realized I didn't like the book. It created a lot of problems that I realized should have been addressed in the first - already published - book of the series. It created even more problems with the two books I had written to follow this one in the series. I didn't know how to fix it. More so, I didn't want to have to read through a book that I hated again just so I could try to fix everything that I thought was wrong, every flaw, every imperfection, that my eyes could find within this book. Instead, I did something pretty insane.
I trashed the entire book.
I introduced new characters, new killers, new victims (it's a detective book, no worries). People that used to be fast friends now currently hate each other. Characters have new, in-depth back stories. The crime scene organization, the killer's M.O., my main detective's strategy… it's all changed. Almost nothing's the same.
Now, of course, I didn't completely get rid of the old book. I emailed it to myself in case I changed my mind. I still have it saved to my documents. I'm using it as a reference. Some of the scenes are exact copies from the original book. Other scenes are the same, but they have more descriptions. Some scenes are completely new to the book, and others from the original simply don't exist anymore.
And you know what? That's okay. You don't have to like your first product. That's what editing and polishing are for. You can change the book as many times as you want before it goes public, before you let anyone else even look at it.
For what it's worth, you'll probably never see your own manuscript as perfect. You may never even see it as being good. That's my main problem. That's when you bring in a good friend, someone you trust and value their opinion. You don't want to get a friend that will tell you it's good no matter what they actually think. You want someone that's going to be brutally honest, despite your friendship. At the same time, this someone needs to give constructive critism. If they think something isn't good, they better have a specific thing that isn't good or at least a suggestion on how to make it better. If they don't, they most likely don't think it's that bad. They may have just wanted to pick a random flaw they thought they had seen.
If that's the case, find someone else. It can be another writer, it can be a fellow reader, but it doesn't have to be. Most of my people that give opinions are people I've met online. And they're honest with me, because they're not afraid of hurting my feelings. That's the kind of person or people you're looking for when you need opinions or ideas.