We edit our commentsor return to clarify them; we cannot resist. Revision as writing isan idea that we should not abandon or trash. And it may not evenbe possible to.
Revision and clarification could also be integral to who we are as people, and our need to improve over time.
But this critique echoes the point thatwriting is social and responsive to its readers. Writing is almostalways meant to be read and responded to, not hoarded away.
Sometimes, however, you just have to get the content out there and one cannot keep rewriting forever.
Was King writing a new speech? Was he done withthe Rocky Mount or Detroit one? “I Have a Dream” was not onespeech, but many, written and re-written. King was not contentto let his words sit, but like any practiced writer working out hismuscles, he revised and riffed, adapting it for new audiences andpurposes.
Another good example that revising is vital and not just a failure in getting it in your first try (like how I do).
Themore writers revise, whether that be the keystrokes they sweat infront of a blinking, demanding cursor or the unofficial revising theydo in our heads when they’re showering or driving or running,the more the ideal reader becomes a part of their craft and musclememory, of who they are as writers, so at some point they may notknow where the writing stops and the revision begins.
Using this as a guideline, then writing stops very early in the process and tweaking and improving over time takes more time than writing the piece itself.
Revision is not a sign of weakness or inex-perienced or poor writing. It is the writing.
Again the most important takeaway for people like me. Revision is not failure to get it, but majority of the writing itself.
In Stephen King’s memoir On Writing, he calls this instinct the idealreader: an imagined person a writer knows and trusts but rewritesin response to, a kind of collaborative dance between writer andreader.
Another way to think about revision rather than entirely overhauling your piece and "evolving" it over time.
But most of the time, even watching this quickly on class-room monitors, my students notice Weninger aims for the jugularin his writing. He’s after wholesale overhaul of his argument andof his larger work.
Revision as an overhaul, improved through time and "evolving" the piece is one way to see it.
Anne Lamott calls “shitty first drafts” and all the ones that follow,the revision of a tenth and a thirteenth and a twenty-third draft. Ishow a YouTube video by Tim Weninger, a computer scientist andengineer at the University of Notre Dame. In the video, Weningerstitches together his revisions of a research paper. In my class,we play a game, guessing how many revisions Weninger did. Theanswer—463!—almost always surprises them
This basically continues to illustrate the point that revisions are necessary and many professionals are forced to revise 10s or maybe even 100s of times.
evision is not the thing writers do when they’redone writing. Revision is the writing.
I feel like this is the most important takeaway from the reading, the fact that the whole point is revising to improve, not seeing revision as a part of the process that I am forced to do.