It has been a long time since I have come back to my blog and I don't know why I have internalized as much as I have but it has been a nice change of pace. I have been reading a lot lately and working on some revision but I have not come back to the blank page in a long time. I think this has been the longest respite from new work I have allowed myself since I began the program. It is a total shifting of mental priorities to go from working on new material to working on revision.
New works, for me, are blustery and full of energy and revision is a very quiet process that involves looking at the smallest details, reading aloud and dwelling on the story and the characters, trying to make them full. It is important, I believe that I come to understand this process better. I have always written in a way that avoided revision. I have been so desperate to move on to new material that I rarely spend a lot of time working on things I have already produced.
As a result of this semester, with the work on the essay and my one story, I have come to understand that the depth of story that I adore comes from revision. I will not be able to produce those swelling moments of realization in a first draft. I may come close, I may point in the right direction, but it will almost never occur in the first, or even the second or third, draft.
This process has seen me retreat inside myself and quiet the raging typist for a few weeks. It's been a nice break but I will try and be a little more responsive with my blog to keep myself from collapsing inward and becoming hermit-like.
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