I love the creative process. I love the brilliant idea as bright as a candle flame. The revision process? Not so sexy.
I wish I could fall in love with rewriting. These tips for writers as they revise at Necessary Fiction really got me thinking. Here are a few useful ideas from the post:
- write the plot on sticky notes then organize in columns
- retype the whole thing
- change fonts
- make sure what your character wants is an impediment to what others want
- raise the stakes
- get rid of introductory clauses
I am in love with the short form. I love blogging. I sit down. Write for 20 minutes. Add a photo or two. Hit publish. Done! Go about life.
For me revising is endless. There’s no Done!
Thanks to NaNoWriMo, I now have two half-baked novels written during the months of November (2011 and 2009). Due to their unwieldy length, slightly more than 50,000 words, I can’t bear to open the first chapter. Just maybe if I set out the plot on colorful sticky notes or cut up my scenes with scissors, the story could emerge more like a work of art, a collage, than a mess of incomplete plot points.
I have been crazy making collages lately. I get into a Zen mode and throw paint and color and images down on paper or on discarded library books.
Done! I love the haphazard process and the chaotic result. Maybe I could see the process of revising my writing as a visual art project.
As the blogger Matthew Salesses says, “a lot of these thoughts are about seeing. Remember: re-vision.”
I, too, can repurpose, rewrite, rethink, rewind, rework, and revise. Re-vision.
Related articles
- No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days, Chris Baty (booksjadore.wordpress.com)
100 Days of Poems and Pics 