WriteJayWrite

The Fantasy

When I write, it is always exactly what I wanted to say, exactly how I wanted to say it. When I am in the zone, I am so on fire that everything pouring out of me is perfection and there is no possible way that anyone could ever improve it.

The Reality

The odd thing, though, is that when I go back to read a presumably perfect piece of prose, I find something that I could have worded better, I find a preposition where one ought not to live, or I find a “be” verb dangling out there all passive and boring. In other words, I’ve never actually written anything perfectly the first time.

The Payoff

I hate the rewrite like I hate paying taxes or washing the dishes. But, I take pleasure in a clean kitchen, I prefer not going to jail, and I treasure the quality of writing that comes from reviewing something I’ve written. The effort, the pain and the mind-numbing feeling that I’ve read all of it before are worth it.

The Realization

In her book Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott talks about the “Sh*tty first draft.” When I first read the book, I thought she meant that I should just write out the first draft without worrying about it. At the time I was struggling to get anything out because I’d just taken a writing class where I learned that my writing was horrible, and even if it were passable it wouldn’t matter because nothing mattered, none of us would ever be writers and we were all going to die soon anyway. (The teacher was a little down that semester I think.) The concept of the bad first draft helped me push through the feeling that I needed to perfect every word and sentence as I wrote it and I started writing in earnest again. (Thanks Anne.)

But, now that I see it from the other side, I realize that because I am not pausing at every period to make sure I kept my audience in mind during that last prepositional phrase, or ensuring that I didn’t just type “form” instead of “from,” I may occasionally make a mistake or two. (Usually more than two.)

The Example

For instance, today I wrote a piece about odd things turning up in my Google Image searches. When I reviewed it, I noticed that I wrote “Entertainment Industry” instead of “Entertainment Company.” The former is just in my head and the second word naturally follows the first. It feels odd to say “Entertainment Company,” yet that is what I was actually talking about. Without the review process, I would have missed that, and people might have mistaken me for an idiot.

The Question

The re-write is especially hard for bloggers. I’ve just written something that I think is brilliant, and I want to post it. Chances are, it’s pretty good – I did write it, after all. So, should I just throw it up and hope for the best? Sometimes I think yes, and sometimes I think no.

The Answer

Usually when I think “just post it,” it is because I don’t want to re-write. It is at those times when I do my little writer pep-talk.

Who is your favorite writer? You are, right? So, you are reading the latest piece of brilliance from your favorite writer – before the rest of the world even knows it exists. This is exciting – so keep going.

I typically edit a piece until I can go through it twice without changing anything. I think that is a good rule of thumb. I’ve become almost good at self-editing, but occasionally I’ll look at a piece from a week ago and see a huge error. That is disheartening, though I’ve seen errors in books and magazines too, so I try to keep some perspective.

The End

If we were Brick Layers, or Glass Blowers, the stuff that we made would have to be perfect the first time, because we would not get a second chance with buildings or glass. But, we are fortunate enough to be writers, and our creations take time to perfect. So, I say, enjoy the freedom we have to mold and craft a good piece into a great piece. Yeah, it sort of takes the joy and immediacy out of a great idea, but the payoff comes in knowing that we’ve taken the time to build a masterpiece.

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