For me, Revising is fraught with performance anxiety. It hadn’t dawned on me till reading Chapter 7 that it was because I approach writing without goals and plans. I have mystified the process—and locked myself out of enjoying it. The sections that I love the most in this chapter are the ones where we get to experience the revision process across multiple disciplines of art. Seeing Picasso’s revision of the Bull was essential in driving the point that we all come to our best by a process.
I have been taking writing courses for at least six years. I am still stumped that revision works and works well, but I’ve also been ashamed of how much revision my work needs. Haven’t we all been in a class where someone writes a story and say they got it right the first time? I went to Florida State where Pulitzer Prize Winning writer Robert Olen Butler was rumored to be able to sit down and churn out a complete story. There’s even video of it! (It’s 119 minutes long and I, quite frankly, don’t have time to watch that.) That’s the bar that I have set myself against—they bar of myths.
I am in the process of writing a novel. I have been in that process for the past two years and over revising has left me with three whole beginning pages. Maybe I’ll loosen up a little…or better yet, write something else. Something fun and worth revising 39 times.
