Re-visioning
In the last few months, I’ve heard a lot of people say they hate revision. I have to admit I find this somewhat baffling—I love revision. I am pretty bad about cleaning my house, but I think of revision in exactly this way. Every room, every paragraph is an opportunity for improvement, beautification, order. Wash a dish, rewrite a sentence. Take the cluttered coffee table of a scene piled with books, papers, pens, coasters, glasses, and napkins and put it all in the right order (and throw out what’s trash). I find revision (and vacuuming) really fucking satisfying.
So I was jazzed to hear this recent conversation on revision with Kiese Laymon and Tressie McMillan Cottom, in which Laymon says, “I literally have to do 20, 25 drafts not simply to compete, but because I’m not ever really sure what I think about an idea.” Revision is the chance to beautify, but more importantly to dig deeper. The more I wrangle words on the page, the more I see the possibilities and depth of meaning in what I’m writing.
Not that that’s easy. As Laymon says, “Most of us are afraid of what we see when we look backwards. And I am too. But I know that the only way that we can grow backwards and forwards is to honestly assess the ingredients that we put into life. And that’s what I try to do with my work.”
I believe—STAY WITH ME—that revision is an act of self-care. It is a path not only to transforming our work, but ourselves. Laymon: “The act of revision on the page is so tied to the act of living our lives.” After all these years of writing and rewriting, I agree. What could be more soothing than saying exactly what we want to say, than knowing exactly what happened and what it all meant to us, to our characters?
You may, dear reader, be thinking well great, that’s really nice, but HOW do I accomplish all these lofty goals? What does it look like when I actually sit down, put my fingers on the keys? In a recent Craft Talk newsletter Jami Attenberg shares how writer Zach Lazar approaches revision: “I write as sloppy and fast as I can. Then I circle the good stuff and cut the rest” (emphasis mine). If I could boil everything I know about revision into one sentence, it would be this one. Keep the good stuff. Toss the bad.
Revision flummoxes folks because it relies on instinct. In your gut, you know what needs to be cut, what isn’t saying exactly what you want, what is a detour you enjoyed writing but ultimately is irrelevant to the story. Your heart knows which sentences say one thing when you really meant another, what the story is truly about. And for those of you who think your organs are dang, dumb liars, let me remind you: you get dressed every day. You’ve set a table or tidied a room. You know what you want things to look like. And you’ve read a ton of books. Somewhere deep inside, you have excellent instincts about how words and sentences and ideas fit together, how to build a scene that is neat and moving.
But instincts pair well with methods and tools, and I will will share many that break down the process to manageable parts in a revision workshop on Thursday December 9th (on Zoom, join from anywhere!). We’ll unpack the mystery of revision, fill up our toolbox, and cultivate the elbow grease and patience revision requires. This conversation will be useful for writers of fiction and nonfiction.
Toward the end of her conversation with Laymon, McMillan Cottom doubles down, taking the idea of revision to a whole new level by framing our nation’s current struggles as a revision problem. America, she says, “won’t revise its history, won’t revise its present, won’t revise its narratives about the future….the fight over things like Confederate monuments…or fights over critical race theory are about this nation’s refusal to revise,” to give up what she calls an “attachment…to the founding myths of what this nation is supposed to be.”
As anybody who has written memoir or read history knows, viewing the past through an updated lens allows us to make sense of it, maybe even make peace with it. If we can re-envision our past, cast it with more honesty and compassion—I made a mistake, I regret it, here’s what I’ve learned—the door opens to moving past harm and hurt. Above all revision requires deep honesty to recognize the truth and courage to speak it. It’s not for the faint of heart, but through practice, we can become very brave, very truthful.
Revision is, above all, the act of looking excruciatingly closely until looking becomes seeing: re-visioning. As we enter the holiday season, rife with false narratives about what love, connection, ritual, and joy look like, I encourage you to examine the mythologies we’re swimming in and perhaps challenge them in any small way. Why revise? Because sifting through the noise to find a sweet little truth all your own will fill you with exhilaration and wonder.
Keep writing, friends—and keep revising.
J.
Many of us find revision challenging, not exactly sure what needs to be improved or how. In this hands-on workshop, we’ll review the list of questions every writer should ask as they enter the revision process, practice concrete strategies for successful revision, and compare first drafts to final drafts to see how revision can take a piece from good to great. This class is aimed at both fiction and nonfiction writers. Participants will leave with clear ideas and techniques for revision as well as the confidence to revise successfully. This workshop will meet on Zoom on Thursday, December 9th, 6:00pm-8:00pm ET. Sign up now.
The clock is running out on 2021, the longest night not far off. And here come the holidays, full of frenzy and expectation. If you want a little space amid these churnings, a chance to pause and move your body and your pen on the page, please join me for the last 2021 yoga & writing workshop on December 22. These workshops pair a gentle, grounding yoga practice with writing prompts that invite you to survey your internal landscape and reorient toward your essence and your intention. If you would like to face the darkness and cultivate some light in a welcoming, restful space, please register now—early bird pricing ends December 8th!
To Read
I just blew through Three Girls from Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood, which this reviewer says “interrupts the monolithic narrative of Black Chicago as ruined and broken, as well as the one-note stereotypes about growing up in public housing,” instead offering “a textured portrait of a moment in time in a particular place: the 1970s in Bronzeville, a neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago that was the landing place for most of the city’s hundreds of thousands of new Black residents who’d fled the terrorism of the Jim Crow South beginning in the early 20th century.” I appreciated this book for its direct writing and untidy insights about the sometimes random forces that direct our journeys and fates.
This article ran in Time six weeks ago, but it stuck in my mind, adding to my list of worries the well-being of those who work in retail (already a tough job, frequently underpaid). People are really freaked out, and they are taking it out wherever they can. I fear what awaits those in front-facing roles as we enter the holiday season and another Covid wave. Now, more than ever, kindness.
Last but not least, you should read the obituary of the social scientist who researched and named the concept of “flow.” I could write about flow FOREVER, but I’ll just say this: I feel it when I write, when I teach, when I swim, walk, and bike, and a life without it is not worth living. Thank you, Dr. Csikszentmihalyi, for naming this transformative experience.
To Watch
You absolutely should spend five minutes watching Paul Simon describe to Dick Cavett how he wrote Bridge Over Troubled Water. It includes the greatest hits of making art: a few bits of inspiration, borrowing from other artists (and borrowing, and borrowing some more), getting stuck, and letting your subconscious work on a problem. Full credit & thank goes to my friend Jacob for putting this in his very fantastic newsletter.
To Go Poems
I cannot express how good The Slowdown is. It is so, so, so good. Just listen to it, and you’ll see.
Today I’m Not Thinking About Gender by Dennison Ty Schultz
Response, Years Later, to Two Male Poets I Overheard Discussing How Sick They Were of Women's Poems about the Body by Meghan Dunn