Joanna Siwiec Response: WT: Ch. 7, Revision

[Anonymous]

#827

Revision has always been my least favorite part of writing. Only ever writing academic pieces, it would be essays, articles, research that I would have to rewrite, and ever since elementary school I found it a bore. Then when I began writing personally, rewriting became another level. I avoided it. I had trouble going back to the emotions I allowed myself to compose, to reread the privy thoughts that poured out. Soon enough, however, I found revision to be a tool that reconstructed my words. It made sentences into fragments, whilst increasing meaning. It destroyed paragraphs, ate commas, hid periods, and created space. Revision allowed me to turn the abundance of information, into less words that held hidden, powerful meaning.

I find it hard to categorize myself as an overwriter or underwriter, as I think of myself as falling on either of that spectrum-depending on what my mood is when I am writing. When I spend hours pondering on material, pacing back and forth as it builds within me, I overwrite. I throw everything there. But at the same time I stop at every break. And reread. And rewrite in the process. The days that I stress over the idea of doing work, I can’t write freely. I’ll sit, write a sentence, then come back an hour later to write the second one. Both processes have me rewriting while in the process of writing.

Chapter 7 offered a great number of techniques and help for rewriting, however I was a bit offput with the idea that rewriting is the best type of writing: “revision–and its power to transform early drafts into worthwhile work” and “good writing is rewriting” (pg 93). While a first piece of writing is often not greatly polished, I find that it is sometimes the first draft that holds the rawest spills of the mind. And sometimes, in a way, revision manipulates those thoughts and feelings the writer had when they first sat down and wrote. Manipulates them into something that is carefully thought out, properly placed, and smoothly worded. It reminds of a rough piece of wood before you tame it with sandpaper. At times when I revise, I look at the original words I have written and ask myself what is beneath them. Digging into my own psyche often expands my work, and my order of sentences and words is always manipulated.

Lastly, the idea of time in the chapter is something very obvious, but not necessarily something we often think about. Coming back to a piece of personal writing a while after is always needed. My fear with revising has always been what the chapter calls “rewriting the life out of a piece” (pg 100). Becoming distanced from my writing, or even guarded from it, happens in my revision process at times. If I come back to a raw piece of work a few weeks later, I find myself trying to “camouflage” it because the writing may make me uncomfortable. I’ll deconstruct it until the meaning is hidden with certain words, in within silences in my spaces. In my writing group, we have different types of revisers. And I think that has definitely been productive for me to see what the process is of others. While I underwrite and cut, I’ve seen writers revise 5 or more times and expand their work–and more often than not, the voice of each piece has changed to a more thought, almost hidden, piece.

This chapter reminded of a quote from Janet Burroway: “Most writing is done between the mind and the hand, not between the hand and the page.”

[Sondra Perl]

#836

Great quote!

[Marguerite Van_Cook]

#872

“My fear with revising has always been what the chapter calls “rewriting the life out of a piece” (pg 100). Becoming distanced from my writing, or even guarded from it, happens in my revision process at times. If I come back to a raw piece of work a few weeks later, I find myself trying to “camouflage” it because the writing may make me uncomfortable.”
This is such a great point. I was just talking with Joshua Belknap about “hiding” things in /by/with one’s writing.
I use the term “blanketing”, as in “security blanketing”…I do it with too much decoration and description and I suppose we all do it in particular ways. It is interesting to see how you notice this in your own work.

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