So I've been thinking a lot lately that I haven't been getting much done in terms of the writing, anguishing over the one story, nitpicking lines, trying to flush out scenes, and it brought me to a realization.
When in the revision phase of the writing process, it isn't going to be the blustery energy of original conception. I'm not going to fill pages with new text, paragraphs aren't going to be streaming out of my fingertips as I work on revision, rather, it is a quiet process, the opposite of blustery but powerful in an entirely different way.
As I sat last night working on my story, it came to me that what I was doing was finding the exact sense of what I was meaning to say. It was very similar to the refinement I did when working on the essay. I finally had the breakthrough that I don't need to be filling reams of paper with text, or rather reams of screens. There are going to be times where I need to sit down with the work I have already created and work at the task of refinement, specificity, etc.
I added two or three lines to the closing paragraphs of my story last night and all of a sudden it came into view, the thing that I felt missing from how I had written it before. The sympathetic element from son to father was missing because I had cut the sentimental version earlier and then hadn't done the hard work of putting it back in a subtler form that didn't lapse into sentimentality.
When I was able to quiet myself, to sit and not press against the story, but listen to it, I found my ending, at least until I revise it again.
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