Writing is Rewriting
God, I love editing. First drafts are haaaard – like giving birth – furious, painful, sweaty. I‘m plagued with doubt – will I die during delivery? Will I give birth to a guinea pig? [Seriously, I had that dream a lot when I was pregnant.] Nothing is guaranteed with a first draft.
But editing is like raising the child. Not without its traumas, obviously, but slower-paced, and infused with moments of pure joy. It – the story – already exists, my job is just to mould, to guide. As the brilliant poet Cherie Taylor-Battiste put it to her child – you are the picture, I am the frame. I’m here to show you in your best light.
Perhaps pottery is a better, less messy, analogy – first drafts are throwing lumps of clay onto the wheel and hoping it sticks. Editing is where you get to play – to shape, the opportunity to make something of beauty. Of course, you might not, but that doesn’t matter, because the hope is there and the process is enjoyable.
Avid readers of this blog will know that one of my goals for this year was to revisit an old project and so I’ve been back to a script for a feature film that I co-wrote eight years ago. Such a strange experience – returning to the past – like visiting a house I used to live in, but someone else resides there now and so the furniture isn’t how I remember it, but the structure, the walls are still the same.
‘The first draft of anything is shit,’ said Ernest Hemingway. I love that quote because it reminds me the only thing I have to worry about during the first draft is wrestling the words onto paper.
But watching something take shape, polishing the best bits, trimming the fat – that’s the best part of writing for me. And to do it with the benefit of eight years of hindsight is quite something, because I see it more clearly, I’m not as emotionally attached. I used to think that projects had a window of opportunity – you had to nail the story down before you ran out of time, but now I know better. Sometimes time is exactly what’s needed and nothing is ever wasted.
[image error]Just before Spring is sprung
