So I was working last night on a revision of my story that I'm expected to send in the next packet to my advisor when I get the feeling that instead of clarifying the text, I am confusing it, expanding it, diluting it. It's a strange position to be in when the result of your actions is having the exact opposite effect than what you intended.
How much of our intent is made clear on the page? How much of our intent actually is present in the consequences of our actions. I mean, the road to hell is paved in good intentions, right? So, when I'm working on my text and I'm trying to illuminate my characters, give them weight and depth, is my revision really working at counter purposes? Don't get me wrong, revision is absolutely the art in my work. My stories would be nothing without this process but it was interesting to me that when I dutifully sat down with this specific piece that the result was quite the contrary to the intent. Is it because I don't have enough distance from the project to really get down into the heart of it? Was I distracted and therefore making arbitrary and counter-intuitive changes?
The more I delve into the practice of writing, the more I find that I will never know the answer and for every problem that I solve, it will mutate into something new where I will have to struggle through the process all over again with all the accompanying self-doubt and anxiety that I bring to this process.
Just some food for thought.
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