Friday, July 24, 2009

When Reading Becomes Writing

I completed the final revision "The Poet Story," which is now called "Digging Graves." Just because I'm done with the revision, doesn't meant that heavy editing is also finished. Every word must serve a purpose and if something stalls the flow of the story, it must be cut.

I'm not sure how much paper and ink I wasted printing several copies of the revised version for editing process - while I can type a story on a computer, I cannot for the life of me revise and edit one while I'm staring at a screen. The first version I printed out was the second revision. I worked on a third and that was printed out as well. When the fourth came, I was happy with the story. I just need to smooth out the kinks and then edit the document and print again. This time, hopefully, I catch all my mistakes.

After seeing the third version of the story marked in red ink, my mother asked if all those books I've read about writing were the cause of it. I told it was the cause of reading most of my life. If I didn't read so much, I would still be romanticizing how easy writing is.

Just for the record, blog posts rarely get a rough draft. Rarely.



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