Sunday, March 23, 2014

Revision: the painful art of starting over.....


Join me in the scary place writers call  revision.........something I will be teaching writers in a few months. 


Revision is like walking through cactus.... 
in the dark...barefoot and trying to read a map that you no longer trust.......




Or like trying to capture the moon on a windy night with a shaky camera.....knowing that it will never work.
NEVER EVER....



Or like deciding to lean out a window and  take a picture of a beautiful old building even though you know it will never fit anywhere  in the work you are trying to improve and shorten and  see anew....but you do it because you tell yourself that the building will be part of the thing that you will write AFTER the thing you are revising now is finished..and taking pics is WAY easier than actually revising or even thinking about revising....





Or you could try hiding. 
It doesn't work, but you can TRY....
((and I need to get to work on my own revision now))

2 comments:

Peni R. Griffin said...

I find revision kind of exciting, myself, though you have to be in the right headspace for it. Maybe think of it as a makeover?

kathleen duey said...



Peni, Hello!

It IS exciting and I love it. The third of a trilogy (a BIG BROAD one) is kind of a maze though.