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revising
I've spent the past few weeks printing out the first book of Imaginary Year, and going through with a pen and marking up weak spots in the writing. Reading a few hundred pages of your own year-old first-draft writing is a good way to disabuse yourself of any pretentions of genius you may hold.
I know that this process is necessary, but it shakes my confidence in the project, and confidence is exactly the thing that enables me to give over so much time to revision in the first place, so as it wanes so does my desire to revise. It's a kind of self-depleting system, and there must be some sort of trick to keep the whole thing from running down to zero, but I can't envision what it might be. Is it just to keep envisioning success at the end of the tunnel? Or is it to take pleasure in the act of revision itself? I'll confess that I have always found the production of new material to be more fulfilling than the caretaking of the old.
Labels: personal, writing |
Wednesday, July 31, 2002
10:22 AM
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