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| The World's Greatest Cat Is Far Too Busy For Endless Revisions |
Let's face it – if you're a writer,
then the revision process is your frenemy. It can turn a lousy piece
of writing great, but it can also be tedious and time consuming. No
wonder professional writers are so passionate about their work. They
have to be in order to put up with all the revisions their job
requires.
Students of mine at Post University are
currently reading about the revision process and seem fascinated by
the fact that revising one's work really wasn't a big part of writing
until the 20th century. They're right to be fascinated by
that fact, too.
Shakespeare, after all, was said to not
revise at all (though I find that a bit of a stretch). Ernest
Hemingway, on the other hand, claimed he rewrote the amazingly
simplistic ending to “A Farewell To Arms” over thirty times
before he was satisfied with it.
The point? That the writing process
inevitably changes with time.
This is true on a personal as well as
on a societal level. When I was young and hungry, I would spend
untold amounts of time revising a single sheet or two of writing. I
remember literally laying on a floor, looking up at the work in my
hands over and over again. Six or seven revisions for three to six
hundred words was nothing out of the ordinary for me.
What's more, when I wrote a screenplay
about Joan of Arc, it took me two and a half years before I was ready
to send it out. Why? Because it took me close to a year and a half to
complete a single battle scene to my personal satisfaction.
Looking back, I think perhaps it was my
experience screenwriting that tempered my view of the revision
process altogether (I once worked on draft after draft of a script
for a production company). Maybe it was becoming a boxing writer,
though, that made me change my opinion (there's no time to dilly
dally when a fight has just ended).
Whatever the reason, my views regarding
the revision process have changed. I still firmly believe that work
needs to be revised, oh, close to one hundred percent of the time.
Yet I also believe there comes a point when the writer just has to
let his or her work go.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that he
felt he could sometimes actually do better than his best. Believe it
or not, I get what he was saying, but I also believe it's wrong for
us to try to extend ourselves beyond our abilities on a regular
basis. I like to tell my students that my job isn't to read
masterworks but to help them become better writers. In short, I want
them to know it's actually okay to screw up, so long as they're
trying.
Heck, even Shakespeare and Hemingway
made mistakes.
