Hi, friends. Hope you are well. A month or two ago a writer I didn’t know put out a request for drafts of short stories she could show her class. Because my grandmother was a hoarder and because I may have inherited the worst of her habits, I have a box of old drafts I was happy to dig through and send. Why did I spend my afternoon doing this? I don’t think we talk about revision enough and students need to “see” this process, the earlier the better, so that they can begin to understand the scope of what this process might entail.
Enjoyed this piece, Marsha! Am in the depths of revisions for my book of fables, and resonated a lot with the points about choices—how there are so many, none of them wrong, all of them taking us somewhere else. This morning's session led me to reflect on an issue with motivation for one character, and I ended up bringing back a character from 5 revisions ago that fits much better now. Funny how that works!
Enjoyed this piece, Marsha! Am in the depths of revisions for my book of fables, and resonated a lot with the points about choices—how there are so many, none of them wrong, all of them taking us somewhere else. This morning's session led me to reflect on an issue with motivation for one character, and I ended up bringing back a character from 5 revisions ago that fits much better now. Funny how that works!
Thanks for sharing these thoughts!