To revise your writing, of course you must evaluate it. But evaluating is not the same as judging. Judging engages your mental filters and you stop seeing what’s really there. Once you assume something is good, you start seeing all the good things about it. Even neutral aspects will seem positive and negative aspects will […]
How Do You Revise Without Letting the Saboteur Attack?
Revision requires that we see our writing for what it is: an approximation of our intended meaning and effect. We’re trying to recreate the same ideas and emotions in the reader that we experienced, to induce the same neurological state of consciousness, and we can’t do more than approximate that. The page will never hold […]
Real Revision
Don’t resist rewriting; good writing comes from rewriting. You have to see what’s really there before you can change what’s there.
Revised Definitions of Revision and Resistance
Re-vise: def to re-tighten the screws on a vise attached to your head. (Definition suggested by Kurtis Scaletta.) Re-vision: def to see differently because of the tears brought to your eyes by the tightening of the vise on your head. Re-sist: def to insist, despite all evidence to the contrary, that what is, is not […]