Thanks to Jeff for embracing and loving the task of rewriting.
Chances are, that word just send shivers down your spine. It’s painful and nobody likes doing it. Is it essential to great writing?
I know a few people who don’t like to rewrite a lot of their work. I know other people who will edit and tweak things as they’re handing it off to be made final. I fall closer to the second category than the first.
I think the process of creativity is iterative and constantly evolving. What’s great today may not look so good tomorrow. But you can always make things better. Eventually though, you do have to turn all things in or stop working on them.
Which is why you should plan to rewrite your work. If you expect that you’ll tweak, delete and add to your first draft, it’ll free your imagination up much more. You won’t be worried about getting it perfect, you’ll be worried about getting it out. After all, you’ve planned to go back through and change it from a good start to really good, later.
If you do this, you also won’t be scrambling when you finally do have to turn things in. All in all, hopefully you turn out better work because of it.
This makes me think of something I read in Anne Lamott’s book “Bird by Bird.” (My copy is in storage, unfortunately, so I can’t give the exact quote and credit.) But she recalled someone telling her that the first draft is the “down draft,” meaning that your main concern is getting the words down. The next draft is the first “up draft,” meaning you fix your writing up.
Funny how I’m reading this post as I’m doing rewriting this afternoon! Perfect timing!
Left by Joanne Mason on March 19th, 2007