Another Office Hours Q&A where George has simply floored me. I am always on the lookout for examples in life where the spirit of a thing, the embedded, intended lovingness, surpasses the technique. I think this is the realm of art. It is, as George has so aptly titled this post, about the flavor of things. And I find it here in Story Club so frequently that I am amazed.
Today, amongst George’s thoughts about revisions, and editing, and drafts, and when to print out, we come to this, an absolute gift: “The way we ought to feel, according to me: “I am in this dream called life, living it, sometimes feeling trapped in it, sometimes feeling blessed to be in it, and I want – well, I want to leave something lovely behind, for those who will follow me (and for those who are out there in it with me right now), something that, through its complicated beauty, will bear testimony to how crazy and intense and nice it was being here. I hope to reassure and console with this work. (But not falsely.)”
And I, sitting here on my couch, am unable to read much further due to the tears welling up in my eyes….mic drop….walk away….with awe and gratitude. Thank you so much George and thank you questioner for initiating this.
Very helpful post. I'm revising a book-length non-fiction ms right now, and I'm making myself miserable. I don't think I'm doing the book much good either.
The thing has been accepted for publication, and I have a number of (anonymous) readers' comments to contend with. I'm getting a little better about those: "No, that's not the kind of book I'm trying to write." "Yeah, I could go down this alley, but it would take the argument too far off its path." "Oh, you're right; this isn't clear at all."
But I've been working on this project for several decades, and the most painful thing about the process of revision is the realization that I'm not as sharp as I used to be. (I'm in my mid-70s.) I'm trying hard to worry less about that, and even to think more about what age has brought me other than losing my cognitive edge. Not wisdom, exactly, but more concern for my reader? More sense of sentence-by-sentence style? Hard to say; I'll keep thinking about it.
Thanks to the community here for the chance to get this off my chest. It would be hard to talk about with people who know me. And I'm going to be thinking more about partnership with my book and throwing a party. And tomorrow I'm going to print, print, print, and then read straight through. Yes!
If it's any consolation, JSB, I'm in my mid-70s, and the failings of short-term and lexical memories, the cognitive mush, could convince me it's time to give up (on a long novel). Y'know, "I'm resigning to spend more time with family and loved ones, and I also have a rose-pruning project".
Alone, it's really a hard slog. Above all, we still don't know what we're doing. What have I achieved today? Um... Not sure. But I'm finding that enthusiasm can counter the lack of edge, and in two years following George's generous teaching and the discussions here (and on mary g.'s substack), I've got the energy and optimism back.
The end of your comment sounds good -- may the Force be with you!
Thanks so much, John. It really helps to be in a community like this, doesn't it? And I'm glad to hear you'll keep on keepin' on. All my best wishes for your novel!
Me too. Ditto on much of the above. I live in a building with people my age, some younger, some older. And now that I have the time, I am so grateful to have a project I can keep working on and that gives my life purpose because many people our age don't (they sit and watch TV). Also, I think we can claim wisdom. If only I knew then what I know now. Congratulations on your book's acceptance by a publisher. Don't fret so much. You are about to send your writing out into the world, so give it lots of love.
I'm wondering, questioner, if this isn't a case of your just having gotten a bit ahead of yourself. By which I mean that you're fine-tooth editing when you don't have enough story available to edit, that you haven't found the story yet & so can't revise---or edit, though I think revising and editing are two different, though closely related, activities---something that doesn't wholly exist yet. Anyway, this happens to me sometimes, this picking apart, line by line, word by word as you describe it. When it does it's usually a signal that I'm avoiding, for whatever anxious reason, finding the story: I have to write the story but I don't know what the story is yet. When I catch myself at this, I stop making sentences, serviceable sentences, perfect sentences or anything in between. Instead, I switch to scribbling (usually by hand because I believe writing has a physicality to it that the keyboard doesn't quite honor in the story-finding phase) notes to myself, words or phrases, that might point me in the direction of the story. And I do this on cheap paper or index cards, and I use lots and lots of both. (I'm shameless in my use of paper!) Eventually, I find story. Or not. But what this jotting on cheap paper does, I've found, is that it takes the preciousness out of the process. I've lowered the stakes. Everything is more relaxed, more accessible. I'm no longer in pursuit of the perfect sentence. Now I'm looking for the story. Once I've found it, or at least have some grasp of it, then I can start making good sentences, one after the other, until they pile up & I finally have something to revise. I hope this helps.
Yes, I too have gone down some roads that didn't lead to the story, hit the end of the road, often an Avoidance Moment, and had to back track and take another path. I also draft the entire story, back track here and there, cut and paste, etc. and need to get the entire gist of the story before I get into the line-editing revisions. I'm constantly looking for the flow as I read/revise. And now that I'm closing in on the final revisions, I still wake up in the morning, and think, You need to cut that bit, or Add that bit to the preceding chapter, or Change it and instead of dialogue turn it into self-talk (my word for stream of consciousness).
Yeah, line-editing is way at the end. And I wouldn't glorify my method of discovering the story by using the word "draft". I just scribble. Not a complete sentence to be found when I'm still trying to find the story. And the index cards & legal pads makes it easy to move stuff around until I latch onto some kind of shape. (Or toss it all & start again.) My father, a nuclear scientist who also wrote & published an art book, had what he called "scratch notes", basically wads of scrap paper, on which he worked out everything from problems involving nuclear power to the structure of his book. It took the pressure off, especially a good thing when it came to matters nuclear!, and a system I think I borrowed from him. I think it was William Stafford who advised writing to your lowest standard, which sounds more deceptive than it is.
A number of years ago, I just plunged in, (the lowest standard?) and very little of what I wrote then made it this far. I also have piles of index cards and scraps of paper but make lots of notes I keep on the computer, and stick them in here and there, so when I get to that part of the story, I can work them into the next revision. When I hit a dead end, I will journal about it, and often my inner muse responds and helps me figure it out. Right now, I'm trying to finish these revisions, but I have another story in the back of my mind and intend to stick the notes I'm making up on a pin board, so I can see how to block out the action. One time, I actually charted my character's family tree with little scraps of paper pinned onto the board. As Mr. Saunders says, "Whatever works." Who would ever guess writing can be such a messy art?
This is a lovely strategy idea! Do you use index cards for novels? What kind of writing do you do? I, too, am a fan of the handwritten to let everything flow. Typing up my handwritten pieces becomes my editing process; straight to computer simply leaves me stuck, maybe it’s the glow of the screen or the lack of physicality, I’m not sure.
Index cards, though, to allow things a freedom to move and be arranged (I have a terrible habit of copying, forgetting to paste, and copying something else to move it so I lose the first piece I copied when I’m on the computer)—this is a wonderful idea.
Glad you find this method helpful. Index cards & scraps of paper mean you can't go on too long, just get down the gist for now, which is all there's room for anyhow. It's about capturing. Plus there's that ease-of-rearranging feature you mention. As for nice sentences, they're for later, when you have some kind of hold on the thing, at which point you can get the keyboard involved. Except for e-mails (or comments like these), I can't really compose on the computer. It's that damn blinking cursor---goahead!goahead!goahead!, writesomething!writesomething!writesomething! Too much pressure! Then there's the filing. You have to name the thing before you can save it, but how can you name it when you don't even know what it is yet? Filing by date is useless, the story in its nascent form having little to do with the calendar, I've found. I'm not convinced that the mind works like a computer, left to right & top to bottom, when composing, though it sure better be that way when it comes time for someone else to read it! I don't write novels, but I've written several non-fiction books, all of my journalism & all of my short stories this way. To keep all those cards & scraps from getting out of hand & taking over my desk, I use a fancy kind of clothes pin and some soft-sided felt boxes I found at Ikea to keep related things together. Definitely analog! Also, I use those pens my dentist hands out for free twice a year (well, maybe not free exactly, considering the bill). Years ago Howard Junker, the founding editor of the wonderful journal ZYZZYVA, published "The Writer's Notebook" in which he offered entries from the notebooks of several well-regarded writers. It was astonishing and heartening to see how many of the entries were handwritten, just a few words jotted down on scraps of paper.
Beautiful! I never thought about why starting on the computer feels strange but you make such a good point about the blinking cursor and linearity of a screen. Such great insights, Rosanne.
The questioner mentions both "line editing" and "structural editing." To me, a writer needs to do the structural work first. I'm not certain what exactly this questioner means by "structural editing," but I'm going to assume it means revising the story's structure--moving parts around, deciding whether the story needs to be told chronologically, out of order, in fragments, in flashbacks, etc. But whatever is decided, that work needs to be done before any sentence work. I mean, it can be a total waste of time to fix five sentences in the opening paragraph only to realize later that, on a structural level, there is no need for the first paragraph at all. So, revise your structure to fit the story you want to tell. And then go into your sentences and cut, add, rewrite, until the sentences hold together in exactly the right way. They should sing--have a rhythm that is noticeable when read aloud. Have a voice. So maybe this is helpful, and maybe not. But I wish you luck with your story!
This is true generally but I’ve often found that a tightened sentence suddenly makes me realize that it can wing it alone obviating the need for that first paragraph. I think we have to sometimes accept to waste time on a part that may be edited out at a future stage. I find that my writing needs all those intermediate stages. Then again I am notoriously slow at writing !
I've taken to writing quick takes on characters or situations who may or may not end up in the story, just to see who they are and what their presence or absence means to the story. I'm sorry to leave them on the shoulder if I move on without them, but who knows: they might hitch a ride and be at my desk the next go-round.
Sometimes I find that a line or wording that is iffy uncovers a structural problem. Mostly having to do with the sense of forward thrust or else "meaning." For me, that is. I just had a story, The Cave, published in Invisible City, the journal of the U of San Francisco. It popped out of me almost whole - except for the last page, which it took a year to get right. Which means I didn't really "get" my story until a year after I wrote it! Weird feeling.
I love your comment about it taking you a year to nail this one. I think that's more common than most people know. Your story was fascinating, original, compelling and mysterious. Thanks for sending me to it!
Thanks for the link. I was mesmerized by Sallie’s story and was swept along on the journey, suspending my doubts, despite my own multi- generation history with alcoholism and addiction,about who would do any of this, through the very last word. I also find inspirational Sallie’s bio, starting “serious” writing at age 60 and continuing through age 85. Says the 66 year old still struggling to write even an hour each day…
Well, there are parts in this story that made me exclaim out loud, so I'm very glad to see it published. And if it's one of a series with more to come, so much the better. I hope it goes well for you. :)
This is true generally but I often discover after tightening a sentence that it can wing it alone obviating the need for that first paragraph. Sometimes we have to accept wasting time on something that will be ultimately edited out. It was a necessary step to get to a solution
agreed. I'm really just speaking in generalities here. I work sentence by sentence myself and often have to later delete a sentence I worked hard on and loved. But so it goes.
Thanks for this post. It makes me feel a little less guilty about not thinking about my readers when I write and revise. I mostly just write for myself and revise based on my own feelings.
But this post makes me wonder how editors make their decisions, and how writers might learn from these decisions/processes, and yet diverge from them too. I'm thinking in particular of Raymond Carver's "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" and its initial draft, "Beginnings," as edited by Gordon Lish, with all the edits published in The New Yorker. That would be fun for this group to discuss on some future occasion. I read it recently, and it's still kicking around in my head.
Hi Kim, I’m not sure how long you’ve been in Story Club, but I think you would enjoy the series George did with us about his own story, CommComm. He linked to it in the Q&A. It was all about his drafts and process. Great stuff.
The picture of Navalny reading ( with his son?) one of George's books. You can't write about that. Must be so gratifying for you George to see that. Thanks for posting it.
thank you as always for your thoughtful words and beautiful ideas!
some of my favorite moments from this dispatch:
"Reality is reality and concepts are concepts: inadequate word-wrappings, generated out of need, always insufficient."
"The way we ought to feel, according to me: 'I am in this dream called life, living it, sometimes feeling trapped in it, sometimes feeling blessed to be in it, and I want – well, I want to leave something lovely behind, for those who will follow me (and for those who are out there in it with me right now), something that, through its complicated beauty, will bear testimony to how crazy and intense and nice it was being here. I hope to reassure and console with this work. (But not falsely.)'"
"Sometimes my ideas about my writing don’t work for me either"
I’ve been struggling to get a story going. Imposed deadlines (I missed them), assigned edifying reading (they were dull), sat myself at the computer (did clothes shopping). I can spend days/weeks in this Puritan state, metaphorically wearing the drab rags of Serious Writer and slowly spiralling. Time is a gift and look how I’m wasting it and we’re all going to die some day so what *am* I doing with my life, really?
Then I remember I don’t need to atone to the God of Work Ethic. Remember that I think better after a walk. It was so desperate, a couple weeks back I took two long walks in one day. Two loads of sweaty clothes for the wash, but the ideas began flowing. I figured out what was stopping me from starting (muddy characters) and began reading for pleasure. Going for writers who were doing some of what I was missing; letting myself shelve the books again if I thought, ‘Thanks, Cervantes, but you’re not my guy right now’.
After two months of ‘Account for yourself!!’ two weeks of kindness has done me so much good. I knew this (I always know this, down deep) but the guilt to be accountable silenced the intuition to be kind. But it’s the kindness, at least for me, that relaxes my mind enough to think.
'...wearing the drab rags of Serious Writer and slowly spiralling...' Oh my goodness - totally!! Haha. Thanks for this beautifully relatable and helpful and hopeful comment.
So glad to be here with Story Club. What a wonderful question and such a wonderful response that I want to remember, every day. The metaphor about letting your drafts breathe a bit and letting them be a bit lumpy instead of analytically auto piloting the hell out of them reminds me of instructions I’ve seen frequently for pancake batter. Stir it up but not too much. Another case of the Goldilocks zone, which also refers to those precious zones in the universe where life can occur.
Appreciated all of this, especially your observation that a writer must "be watchful for any hint that I might be involved in a downward neurotic spiral (DNS)." Made me laugh, because who hasn't been there with a manuscript? Beware the DNS! Also, that photo of Navalny was so moving. We were talking about his integrity and courage in my book club last week.
I love this question and George's response, so generous it makes me want to try and be more generous myself and share my process. I understand the sense of not moving forward with a story because each time we go to it we start at the beginning and spend whatever time we have write revising. I'm always doing this; it frustrates me. Something I've tried is to give myself permission to change the beginning pages for a few sessions, then go to my desk with the mentality 'OK, this may not be perfect, but it's better than it was, I'll let it slide for now, today I have to move on. My character is just lying around in limbo. I'd better release her. ' I'll read the pages I've already revised fast, slowing down as I approach new material time, I'll start changing the last para and go from there. I keep doing this until I have a full draft. I'll then let it sit for a week or so, don't look at it, maybe think about it when I walk the dog or paint a chair. I'll come back to revise all once. When it seems almost there, I'll read it fast every morning for a week, cutting or changing anything that stalls me as fast as I can. At this stage, I know the story and am looking for anything that irritates me or gets in the way. I think the frustration might serve a purpose at this point, I want to move on, chase another idea flitting by. I know when the story is done not because I think it's perfect ( I will never think it's perfect, and know this about myself) but when I can say I have done all I can, at this point, with this story I'll stop. I ask if I've been true to the story, if it's said what it wants to say and anything I do at this point would be my own fear trying to deny the story it's right to be. It seems no longer about me at this point, the story is it's own little being. And if later, I look at it and want to change it? That's OK, it's just the odd line. I changed the last lines of a story once after it had been published, years later (honestly, nobody minds.) The story in the collection wasn't exactly the same. It was better for it, but I can't beat myself up about not having those lines the first time. It had the benefit of distance and experience I didn't have at the time, and that's fine. Another thing I've tried is pulling myself out of revision mode by skipping ahead, writing a bit that will come later, even if I don't know how I'll get there yet. I'll write it fast. Realising I've just made something happen switches my mindset, from thinking all I do is ponder and ditch commas to boom, I wrote that, I'm a writer, and the decisions come faster. Revision suddenly becomes more focused, there's something in the distance I'm swimming towards. Hope that's helpful anyway (whenever I try to talk about writing my inner critic is like oh, here we go, who do you think you are?!)
An approach that has worked for me (modified recently by a metaphor George used, that his early drafts are like clay he's roughly shaping) is to allow myself to write badly, knowing that I can improve it a little with each revision.
It's not a foolproof approach -- my inner critic, personified here (https://www.journalofexpressivewriting.com/post/the-inner-critic-returns-from-the-dead), still rears its fearsome head -- but over many iterations, this permission-to-write-badly method has weakened that critic, and sometimes he's completely mute, and the fun part of writing emerges instead.
Agreed. And, when I was a therapist, I even showed it to a couple of clients. (Though my sessions took more than five minutes. But, I was only a therapist. I never played one on TV.)
Well said George. Im a bit brain dead from cat nursing but will try and think of anything fun to say. Definitely approaching it with Love is a good way to go, the more fearful you are the more you will take rather than give to it. I mean take the risky bits which could be where some love lies.
I was trying to find a thing I wrote about writing which ended with ‘Make Aliens eyes glisten’,
Your work is like anything, a baby, a puppy, it might be a baby genius or a feral puppy. If you can keep approaching it in a calm assertive way with positivity and an expectation that you will have a bit of fun and it will be good, it will do what you want because it wants to please you.
All you have to do is relax so it’s not getting mixed signals. And sometimes I do a quick run where I put a dot of colour next to any bits I love.
That’s interesting. Sometimes I’ve edited myself into having hardly any of those bits left.
Some of my favourite films are almost plotless, but full of bits I love.
Write down what you love, fast, ten words, what you want people to feel, can you help the world in any tiny way ?
I loved the word George used -console, thats beautiful. Or maybe he meant his console.
Try to find something that inspires you and breathe it in and approach an edit, which could be adding points as well as cutting swathes, with the same gerousity of spirit and tenderness toward your characters.
I’m rambling waiting on results of cat tests. Good luck
The rambling is good! You reminded me of a quote attributed to Maya Angelou: “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Thanks Mary. I guess they must be ringing me last, probably to congratulate me on having such a healthy cat, once this serious looking business clears up
Another Office Hours Q&A where George has simply floored me. I am always on the lookout for examples in life where the spirit of a thing, the embedded, intended lovingness, surpasses the technique. I think this is the realm of art. It is, as George has so aptly titled this post, about the flavor of things. And I find it here in Story Club so frequently that I am amazed.
Today, amongst George’s thoughts about revisions, and editing, and drafts, and when to print out, we come to this, an absolute gift: “The way we ought to feel, according to me: “I am in this dream called life, living it, sometimes feeling trapped in it, sometimes feeling blessed to be in it, and I want – well, I want to leave something lovely behind, for those who will follow me (and for those who are out there in it with me right now), something that, through its complicated beauty, will bear testimony to how crazy and intense and nice it was being here. I hope to reassure and console with this work. (But not falsely.)”
And I, sitting here on my couch, am unable to read much further due to the tears welling up in my eyes….mic drop….walk away….with awe and gratitude. Thank you so much George and thank you questioner for initiating this.
I felt the exact same way reading those lines!
Very helpful post. I'm revising a book-length non-fiction ms right now, and I'm making myself miserable. I don't think I'm doing the book much good either.
The thing has been accepted for publication, and I have a number of (anonymous) readers' comments to contend with. I'm getting a little better about those: "No, that's not the kind of book I'm trying to write." "Yeah, I could go down this alley, but it would take the argument too far off its path." "Oh, you're right; this isn't clear at all."
But I've been working on this project for several decades, and the most painful thing about the process of revision is the realization that I'm not as sharp as I used to be. (I'm in my mid-70s.) I'm trying hard to worry less about that, and even to think more about what age has brought me other than losing my cognitive edge. Not wisdom, exactly, but more concern for my reader? More sense of sentence-by-sentence style? Hard to say; I'll keep thinking about it.
Thanks to the community here for the chance to get this off my chest. It would be hard to talk about with people who know me. And I'm going to be thinking more about partnership with my book and throwing a party. And tomorrow I'm going to print, print, print, and then read straight through. Yes!
If it's any consolation, JSB, I'm in my mid-70s, and the failings of short-term and lexical memories, the cognitive mush, could convince me it's time to give up (on a long novel). Y'know, "I'm resigning to spend more time with family and loved ones, and I also have a rose-pruning project".
Alone, it's really a hard slog. Above all, we still don't know what we're doing. What have I achieved today? Um... Not sure. But I'm finding that enthusiasm can counter the lack of edge, and in two years following George's generous teaching and the discussions here (and on mary g.'s substack), I've got the energy and optimism back.
The end of your comment sounds good -- may the Force be with you!
Thanks so much, John. It really helps to be in a community like this, doesn't it? And I'm glad to hear you'll keep on keepin' on. All my best wishes for your novel!
Me too. Ditto on much of the above. I live in a building with people my age, some younger, some older. And now that I have the time, I am so grateful to have a project I can keep working on and that gives my life purpose because many people our age don't (they sit and watch TV). Also, I think we can claim wisdom. If only I knew then what I know now. Congratulations on your book's acceptance by a publisher. Don't fret so much. You are about to send your writing out into the world, so give it lots of love.
Such good advice and encouragement, Joan -- thank you! And I warmly hope your project will long continue to nurture you.
Right. And grateful for the time.
Lots of others didn't get this much.
Congratulations on the book!
Thanks, Mary!
Also mid 70's.
Don't think too much about it would be my take on it.
Yes, I think that's good advice, though I find it hard to follow, as you may have guessed!
Indeed. No guessing either.
A comment blurted out in a weak moment of optimism.
Hah!
Great post, George, and yes, it's "Lincoln in the Bardo". R.I.P. Alexei Navalny, a brave man.
I'm wondering, questioner, if this isn't a case of your just having gotten a bit ahead of yourself. By which I mean that you're fine-tooth editing when you don't have enough story available to edit, that you haven't found the story yet & so can't revise---or edit, though I think revising and editing are two different, though closely related, activities---something that doesn't wholly exist yet. Anyway, this happens to me sometimes, this picking apart, line by line, word by word as you describe it. When it does it's usually a signal that I'm avoiding, for whatever anxious reason, finding the story: I have to write the story but I don't know what the story is yet. When I catch myself at this, I stop making sentences, serviceable sentences, perfect sentences or anything in between. Instead, I switch to scribbling (usually by hand because I believe writing has a physicality to it that the keyboard doesn't quite honor in the story-finding phase) notes to myself, words or phrases, that might point me in the direction of the story. And I do this on cheap paper or index cards, and I use lots and lots of both. (I'm shameless in my use of paper!) Eventually, I find story. Or not. But what this jotting on cheap paper does, I've found, is that it takes the preciousness out of the process. I've lowered the stakes. Everything is more relaxed, more accessible. I'm no longer in pursuit of the perfect sentence. Now I'm looking for the story. Once I've found it, or at least have some grasp of it, then I can start making good sentences, one after the other, until they pile up & I finally have something to revise. I hope this helps.
Yes, I too have gone down some roads that didn't lead to the story, hit the end of the road, often an Avoidance Moment, and had to back track and take another path. I also draft the entire story, back track here and there, cut and paste, etc. and need to get the entire gist of the story before I get into the line-editing revisions. I'm constantly looking for the flow as I read/revise. And now that I'm closing in on the final revisions, I still wake up in the morning, and think, You need to cut that bit, or Add that bit to the preceding chapter, or Change it and instead of dialogue turn it into self-talk (my word for stream of consciousness).
Yeah, line-editing is way at the end. And I wouldn't glorify my method of discovering the story by using the word "draft". I just scribble. Not a complete sentence to be found when I'm still trying to find the story. And the index cards & legal pads makes it easy to move stuff around until I latch onto some kind of shape. (Or toss it all & start again.) My father, a nuclear scientist who also wrote & published an art book, had what he called "scratch notes", basically wads of scrap paper, on which he worked out everything from problems involving nuclear power to the structure of his book. It took the pressure off, especially a good thing when it came to matters nuclear!, and a system I think I borrowed from him. I think it was William Stafford who advised writing to your lowest standard, which sounds more deceptive than it is.
A number of years ago, I just plunged in, (the lowest standard?) and very little of what I wrote then made it this far. I also have piles of index cards and scraps of paper but make lots of notes I keep on the computer, and stick them in here and there, so when I get to that part of the story, I can work them into the next revision. When I hit a dead end, I will journal about it, and often my inner muse responds and helps me figure it out. Right now, I'm trying to finish these revisions, but I have another story in the back of my mind and intend to stick the notes I'm making up on a pin board, so I can see how to block out the action. One time, I actually charted my character's family tree with little scraps of paper pinned onto the board. As Mr. Saunders says, "Whatever works." Who would ever guess writing can be such a messy art?
This is a lovely strategy idea! Do you use index cards for novels? What kind of writing do you do? I, too, am a fan of the handwritten to let everything flow. Typing up my handwritten pieces becomes my editing process; straight to computer simply leaves me stuck, maybe it’s the glow of the screen or the lack of physicality, I’m not sure.
Index cards, though, to allow things a freedom to move and be arranged (I have a terrible habit of copying, forgetting to paste, and copying something else to move it so I lose the first piece I copied when I’m on the computer)—this is a wonderful idea.
Glad you find this method helpful. Index cards & scraps of paper mean you can't go on too long, just get down the gist for now, which is all there's room for anyhow. It's about capturing. Plus there's that ease-of-rearranging feature you mention. As for nice sentences, they're for later, when you have some kind of hold on the thing, at which point you can get the keyboard involved. Except for e-mails (or comments like these), I can't really compose on the computer. It's that damn blinking cursor---goahead!goahead!goahead!, writesomething!writesomething!writesomething! Too much pressure! Then there's the filing. You have to name the thing before you can save it, but how can you name it when you don't even know what it is yet? Filing by date is useless, the story in its nascent form having little to do with the calendar, I've found. I'm not convinced that the mind works like a computer, left to right & top to bottom, when composing, though it sure better be that way when it comes time for someone else to read it! I don't write novels, but I've written several non-fiction books, all of my journalism & all of my short stories this way. To keep all those cards & scraps from getting out of hand & taking over my desk, I use a fancy kind of clothes pin and some soft-sided felt boxes I found at Ikea to keep related things together. Definitely analog! Also, I use those pens my dentist hands out for free twice a year (well, maybe not free exactly, considering the bill). Years ago Howard Junker, the founding editor of the wonderful journal ZYZZYVA, published "The Writer's Notebook" in which he offered entries from the notebooks of several well-regarded writers. It was astonishing and heartening to see how many of the entries were handwritten, just a few words jotted down on scraps of paper.
Beautiful! I never thought about why starting on the computer feels strange but you make such a good point about the blinking cursor and linearity of a screen. Such great insights, Rosanne.
I like the idea of the index cards. thanks
The questioner mentions both "line editing" and "structural editing." To me, a writer needs to do the structural work first. I'm not certain what exactly this questioner means by "structural editing," but I'm going to assume it means revising the story's structure--moving parts around, deciding whether the story needs to be told chronologically, out of order, in fragments, in flashbacks, etc. But whatever is decided, that work needs to be done before any sentence work. I mean, it can be a total waste of time to fix five sentences in the opening paragraph only to realize later that, on a structural level, there is no need for the first paragraph at all. So, revise your structure to fit the story you want to tell. And then go into your sentences and cut, add, rewrite, until the sentences hold together in exactly the right way. They should sing--have a rhythm that is noticeable when read aloud. Have a voice. So maybe this is helpful, and maybe not. But I wish you luck with your story!
This is true generally but I’ve often found that a tightened sentence suddenly makes me realize that it can wing it alone obviating the need for that first paragraph. I think we have to sometimes accept to waste time on a part that may be edited out at a future stage. I find that my writing needs all those intermediate stages. Then again I am notoriously slow at writing !
I've taken to writing quick takes on characters or situations who may or may not end up in the story, just to see who they are and what their presence or absence means to the story. I'm sorry to leave them on the shoulder if I move on without them, but who knows: they might hitch a ride and be at my desk the next go-round.
Sometimes I find that a line or wording that is iffy uncovers a structural problem. Mostly having to do with the sense of forward thrust or else "meaning." For me, that is. I just had a story, The Cave, published in Invisible City, the journal of the U of San Francisco. It popped out of me almost whole - except for the last page, which it took a year to get right. Which means I didn't really "get" my story until a year after I wrote it! Weird feeling.
Sallie! I'm posting a link to your marvelous story here (hope that's okay): https://www.invisiblecitylit.com/fiction/the-cave/
I love your comment about it taking you a year to nail this one. I think that's more common than most people know. Your story was fascinating, original, compelling and mysterious. Thanks for sending me to it!
Thanks for the link. I was mesmerized by Sallie’s story and was swept along on the journey, suspending my doubts, despite my own multi- generation history with alcoholism and addiction,about who would do any of this, through the very last word. I also find inspirational Sallie’s bio, starting “serious” writing at age 60 and continuing through age 85. Says the 66 year old still struggling to write even an hour each day…
Oh, thank you, Mary! It's more than okay to post a link! And thanks for your kinds words.
PS Dorothy Parker's Ashes has just accepted my second essay!
Thanks for posting the link, mary g. I read your story, Sallie; it's gorgeous! So beautifully written. Loved it.
Thanks, Richard. I'm working on a series in an attempt at last to look honestly at my weaknesses and fears and to find my sources of strength.
Well, there are parts in this story that made me exclaim out loud, so I'm very glad to see it published. And if it's one of a series with more to come, so much the better. I hope it goes well for you. :)
This is true generally but I often discover after tightening a sentence that it can wing it alone obviating the need for that first paragraph. Sometimes we have to accept wasting time on something that will be ultimately edited out. It was a necessary step to get to a solution
agreed. I'm really just speaking in generalities here. I work sentence by sentence myself and often have to later delete a sentence I worked hard on and loved. But so it goes.
Oh, and I don't think Navalny wants to rest in peace, not for a minute. Not till the world changes.
Thanks for this post. It makes me feel a little less guilty about not thinking about my readers when I write and revise. I mostly just write for myself and revise based on my own feelings.
But this post makes me wonder how editors make their decisions, and how writers might learn from these decisions/processes, and yet diverge from them too. I'm thinking in particular of Raymond Carver's "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" and its initial draft, "Beginnings," as edited by Gordon Lish, with all the edits published in The New Yorker. That would be fun for this group to discuss on some future occasion. I read it recently, and it's still kicking around in my head.
Hi Kim, I’m not sure how long you’ve been in Story Club, but I think you would enjoy the series George did with us about his own story, CommComm. He linked to it in the Q&A. It was all about his drafts and process. Great stuff.
Thanks for this info- I’m also curious to check it out. Do you know what the date was? One of the Office Hour Q&A posts?
Here’s the link George posted:
https://georgesaunders.substack.com/p/commcomm-revisited?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
April 30,2023
“CommComm Revisited” (includes downloadable copies of edited versions)
Thanks!
The entire CommComm epic (from January to April last year) can be followed from this page:
https://georgesaunders.substack.com/s/commcomm/archive?sort=new
Thanks John. An even better link!
Thank you!
The picture of Navalny reading ( with his son?) one of George's books. You can't write about that. Must be so gratifying for you George to see that. Thanks for posting it.
dear george,
thank you as always for your thoughtful words and beautiful ideas!
some of my favorite moments from this dispatch:
"Reality is reality and concepts are concepts: inadequate word-wrappings, generated out of need, always insufficient."
"The way we ought to feel, according to me: 'I am in this dream called life, living it, sometimes feeling trapped in it, sometimes feeling blessed to be in it, and I want – well, I want to leave something lovely behind, for those who will follow me (and for those who are out there in it with me right now), something that, through its complicated beauty, will bear testimony to how crazy and intense and nice it was being here. I hope to reassure and console with this work. (But not falsely.)'"
"Sometimes my ideas about my writing don’t work for me either"
thank you!
love
myq
I totally agree. Such great quotes from George.
he's the best!
Yes great florilège - pure George, but also what we maybe have in common with him…
‘I am trying to avoid mistakes rather than throw a good party.’ Brilliant. Sums up where I am at the moment. Thank you!
I’ve been struggling to get a story going. Imposed deadlines (I missed them), assigned edifying reading (they were dull), sat myself at the computer (did clothes shopping). I can spend days/weeks in this Puritan state, metaphorically wearing the drab rags of Serious Writer and slowly spiralling. Time is a gift and look how I’m wasting it and we’re all going to die some day so what *am* I doing with my life, really?
Then I remember I don’t need to atone to the God of Work Ethic. Remember that I think better after a walk. It was so desperate, a couple weeks back I took two long walks in one day. Two loads of sweaty clothes for the wash, but the ideas began flowing. I figured out what was stopping me from starting (muddy characters) and began reading for pleasure. Going for writers who were doing some of what I was missing; letting myself shelve the books again if I thought, ‘Thanks, Cervantes, but you’re not my guy right now’.
After two months of ‘Account for yourself!!’ two weeks of kindness has done me so much good. I knew this (I always know this, down deep) but the guilt to be accountable silenced the intuition to be kind. But it’s the kindness, at least for me, that relaxes my mind enough to think.
'...wearing the drab rags of Serious Writer and slowly spiralling...' Oh my goodness - totally!! Haha. Thanks for this beautifully relatable and helpful and hopeful comment.
I had a hunch (quite) a few of us might relate!
So glad to be here with Story Club. What a wonderful question and such a wonderful response that I want to remember, every day. The metaphor about letting your drafts breathe a bit and letting them be a bit lumpy instead of analytically auto piloting the hell out of them reminds me of instructions I’ve seen frequently for pancake batter. Stir it up but not too much. Another case of the Goldilocks zone, which also refers to those precious zones in the universe where life can occur.
Appreciated all of this, especially your observation that a writer must "be watchful for any hint that I might be involved in a downward neurotic spiral (DNS)." Made me laugh, because who hasn't been there with a manuscript? Beware the DNS! Also, that photo of Navalny was so moving. We were talking about his integrity and courage in my book club last week.
I love this question and George's response, so generous it makes me want to try and be more generous myself and share my process. I understand the sense of not moving forward with a story because each time we go to it we start at the beginning and spend whatever time we have write revising. I'm always doing this; it frustrates me. Something I've tried is to give myself permission to change the beginning pages for a few sessions, then go to my desk with the mentality 'OK, this may not be perfect, but it's better than it was, I'll let it slide for now, today I have to move on. My character is just lying around in limbo. I'd better release her. ' I'll read the pages I've already revised fast, slowing down as I approach new material time, I'll start changing the last para and go from there. I keep doing this until I have a full draft. I'll then let it sit for a week or so, don't look at it, maybe think about it when I walk the dog or paint a chair. I'll come back to revise all once. When it seems almost there, I'll read it fast every morning for a week, cutting or changing anything that stalls me as fast as I can. At this stage, I know the story and am looking for anything that irritates me or gets in the way. I think the frustration might serve a purpose at this point, I want to move on, chase another idea flitting by. I know when the story is done not because I think it's perfect ( I will never think it's perfect, and know this about myself) but when I can say I have done all I can, at this point, with this story I'll stop. I ask if I've been true to the story, if it's said what it wants to say and anything I do at this point would be my own fear trying to deny the story it's right to be. It seems no longer about me at this point, the story is it's own little being. And if later, I look at it and want to change it? That's OK, it's just the odd line. I changed the last lines of a story once after it had been published, years later (honestly, nobody minds.) The story in the collection wasn't exactly the same. It was better for it, but I can't beat myself up about not having those lines the first time. It had the benefit of distance and experience I didn't have at the time, and that's fine. Another thing I've tried is pulling myself out of revision mode by skipping ahead, writing a bit that will come later, even if I don't know how I'll get there yet. I'll write it fast. Realising I've just made something happen switches my mindset, from thinking all I do is ponder and ditch commas to boom, I wrote that, I'm a writer, and the decisions come faster. Revision suddenly becomes more focused, there's something in the distance I'm swimming towards. Hope that's helpful anyway (whenever I try to talk about writing my inner critic is like oh, here we go, who do you think you are?!)
An approach that has worked for me (modified recently by a metaphor George used, that his early drafts are like clay he's roughly shaping) is to allow myself to write badly, knowing that I can improve it a little with each revision.
It's not a foolproof approach -- my inner critic, personified here (https://www.journalofexpressivewriting.com/post/the-inner-critic-returns-from-the-dead), still rears its fearsome head -- but over many iterations, this permission-to-write-badly method has weakened that critic, and sometimes he's completely mute, and the fun part of writing emerges instead.
As for stopping what doesn't work, there's this from Bob Newhart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvujypVVBAY
i think of that bob newhart bit all of the time. So funny.
Agreed. And, when I was a therapist, I even showed it to a couple of clients. (Though my sessions took more than five minutes. But, I was only a therapist. I never played one on TV.)
Stop it!
That is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
“Snap out of it!” he said, to the sad face in the mirror.
Well said George. Im a bit brain dead from cat nursing but will try and think of anything fun to say. Definitely approaching it with Love is a good way to go, the more fearful you are the more you will take rather than give to it. I mean take the risky bits which could be where some love lies.
I was trying to find a thing I wrote about writing which ended with ‘Make Aliens eyes glisten’,
Your work is like anything, a baby, a puppy, it might be a baby genius or a feral puppy. If you can keep approaching it in a calm assertive way with positivity and an expectation that you will have a bit of fun and it will be good, it will do what you want because it wants to please you.
All you have to do is relax so it’s not getting mixed signals. And sometimes I do a quick run where I put a dot of colour next to any bits I love.
That’s interesting. Sometimes I’ve edited myself into having hardly any of those bits left.
Some of my favourite films are almost plotless, but full of bits I love.
Write down what you love, fast, ten words, what you want people to feel, can you help the world in any tiny way ?
I loved the word George used -console, thats beautiful. Or maybe he meant his console.
Try to find something that inspires you and breathe it in and approach an edit, which could be adding points as well as cutting swathes, with the same gerousity of spirit and tenderness toward your characters.
I’m rambling waiting on results of cat tests. Good luck
The rambling is good! You reminded me of a quote attributed to Maya Angelou: “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Great quote ! And we’re all discussing how George made us feel .
hope things go okay with the cat tests.
Thanks Mary. I guess they must be ringing me last, probably to congratulate me on having such a healthy cat, once this serious looking business clears up
fingers crossed.