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Writers on editing (Sustenance Essay Club - July 18th)

from Susan Bell (The Artful Edit:

“Writers live with many fears—of success, of failure, of a ten-year project garnering a one-year paycheck. Their greatest fear, however, is of their own intimate voice, and they find many ways to subvert hearing it. Before she takes up the nuts and bolts of revision, a writer must face the metaphysical challenge of gaining perspective on her own words. Let’s reflect on the kind of inspiration that may fuel a writer: wrenching memories, transgressive desires, politically incorrect conceits, bad jokes, and other aesthetic faux pas. These constitute that painfully intimate voice she would rather avoid. We are loath to put an objective ear to our subjective selves. But to edit is to listen, above all; to hear past the emotional filters that distort the sound of our all too human words; and to then make choices rather than judgments. As we read our writing, how can we learn to hear ourselves better?”

Writers on Editing

from George R.R. Martin:

“I think there are two types of [editors], the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house…
The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it…As the plant comes up and they water it, they don’t know how many branches it’s going to have, they find out as it grows. And I’m much more a gardener than an architect.”

from Allison K. Williams:

“One of the biggest challenges of [editing] a book is distraction. Committing to a series of steps and persevering through boredom, frustration, and shiny new ideas . . . will help you finish your manuscript and feel good about your creation.”

from Susan Cain:



“I never write in order. I don’t start with page 1 and proceed directly to page 250. Instead, I wake up in the morning and write whatever section moves me most that day. I like to follow my emotions, my interest, my sense of intrigue. Then, I polish whatever I’ve come up with, over and over and over again, and weave it all together. This is where my process gets quite methodical - I feel like a human Zamboni machine, slowly circling the ice until it (hopefully) gleams.

My friend’s eyes lit up. He said he would try this. And six months later, he reported, his manuscript was blooming.”


from Annie Dillard:

“How fondly I recall thinking, in the old days, that to write you needed paper, pen, and a lap. How appalled I was to discover that, in order to write so much as a sonnet, you need a warehouse. You can easily get so confused writing a thirty-page chapter that in order to make an outline for the second draft, you have to rent a hall. I have often “written” with the mechanical aid of a twenty-foot conference table. You lay your pages along the table’s edge and pace out the work. You walk along the rows; you weed bits, move bits, and dig out bits, bent over the rows with full hands like a gardener. After a couple of hours, you have taken an exceedingly dull nine-mile hike. You go home and soak your feet.”


from George Saunders:

“ . . . My [editing] method is this: I imagine a meter mounted in my forehead, with a P on this side (“Positive”) and an N on that side (“Negative”). I try to read what I’ve written the way a first-time reader might (“without hope and without despair”). Where’s the needle? If it drops into the N zone, admit it. And then, instantaneously, a fix might present itself—a cut, a rearrangement, an addition. There’s not an intellectual or analytical component to this; it’s more of an impulse, one that results in a feeling of “Ah, yes, that’s better.” . . . 
And really, that’s about it. I go through the draft like that, marking it up, then go back and enter that round of changes, print it out, read it again, for as long as I still feel sharp—usually three or four times in a writing day. . . .
When I first found this method, it felt so freeing. I didn’t have to worry, didn’t have to decide, I just had to be there as I read my story fresh each time, watching that meter, willing to (playfully) make changes at the line level, knowing that if I was wrong, I’d get a chance to change it back on the next read. I once heard someone say that “given infinite time, anything can happen.” That’s how this way of revising makes me feel. No need for overarching decisions; the story has a will of its own, one it is trying to make me feel, and if I just trust in that, all will be well, and the story will surpass my initial vision of it.
I once heard the great Chicago writer Stuart Dybek say, “A story is always talking to you; you just have to learn to listen to it.” Revising like this is a way of listening to the story and of having faith in it: it wants to be its best self, and if you’re patient with it, in time, it will be.
Essentially, the whole process is: intuition plus iteration. . . . 
That’s how I see revision: a chance for the writer’s intuition to assert itself over and over.
A piece written and revised in this way, like one of those seed crystals in biology class, starts out small and devoid of intention and begins to expand, organically, reacting to itself, fulfilling its own natural energy.”

From Susan Bell:


“No [editing] method is incorrect. If you keep working, every method will lead you to a finished manuscript. Try, however, to find the one that works for, more than against, you.”

On endings

from Lauren Groff:

“How do you know when you’re done with a project, whether that be finishing it or shelving it indefinitely?
It’s paying attention to the energy of the piece. If it feels really distant from me, I know that there’s an irreconcilable problem between me and the work, and I need to just put it to the side until it wants to come back to me. If I wake up really excited to work on something, then it’s still present in me. If not, I put it to the side without fearing, because often those things come back much, much better a decade or two decades later. It’s really allowing the work not to just be the work at hand, but the longer process of making something, making a life and making a life in art. 
 . . . I tried to do this story when I was 19 and it didn’t work and I kept trying 26 and then 34 and then 42.
It didn’t work any of those times. But finally at 46, it came to me in the form that it required. It takes a long time sometimes, but it also takes ruthlessness and not letting the story go into the world if it’s publishable, but it’s not singing in the voice that it needs to sing in.”

On feedback

from Eliot Weinberger:

“About fifteen years ago, when I was putting together a book of essays, I sent the manuscript to two people I really respect, who are brilliant and wonderful writers, to get their opinions on it. What each one said was the complete opposite of what the other said. One said, “This essay is the best essay in the book. It’s fabulous.” The other guy said, “This is the worst essay in the book. You really should cut it out.” 
Their responses cancelled each other out, so I ignored both of them and went back to what I was doing in the first place.”

from George Saunders:

“We can reduce all of [editing] to this: we read a line, have a reaction to it, trust (accept) that reaction, and do something in response, instantaneously, by intuition.
That’s it.
Over and over.
It’s kind of crazy but, in my experience, that’s the whole game: (1) becoming convinced that there is a voice inside you that really, really knows what it likes, and (2) getting better at hearing that voice and acting on its behalf.”

Nellie’s Kinda-Sorta-Not-Really Rules for Sustainable Editing

    • Keep the energy tank full! Know where your energy sources are and partake of them liberally. On a related note…
    • The Cycle of Sane Editing: Go back and forth between energy-creating tasks and energy-depleting tasks
    • Edit from hope, not fear
      • Hope: "I’m going to be brave enough to make an honest attempt to reveal the unique energy of this work—even if I don’t do it perfectly." (Newsflash: You won’t!)
      • Fear: "I’m going to try to fix this so it doesn’t suck, so other people like me, so I get this award..."
      • It’s easy to vacillate between these states.
    • Listen for what the essay wants to be—and then "aim for the block"
    • Leave some weird shit in
      • Maggie Smith: "I try not to edit the 'wild' out."
    • It’s done when it’s ripe—not when it’s perfect
      • For me: A specific sound + a specific conviction when I read it aloud.
    • To find where you’re not being honest or where the energy is flagging, read it aloud
    • Write in Garamond; edit in Helvetica
    • Edit in different physical locations! Move around! Use different physical tools!
    • Watch for “darlings” (things I like that have no energy in the context of the piece)
    • Watch for "muddle"
      • Mystery is ambiguity that increases the essay's energy
      • Muddle is ambiguity that depletes the essay's energy
    • When integrating feedback, pay attention only to the feedback you recognize and have the emotional/mental energy to address.
    • Try not to get bogged down—if a tactic isn’t working, change it
    • What you take out makes the rest stronger (i.e. If you just can’t fix a section/paragraph, sub-theme, sometimes it’s a sign that Said Section needs to come out)
      • When it doubt, I take it out. Can the essay survive without it?
    • A deadline doesn’t hurt; blowing past it can be fun, too!
    • You might have to "finish" essays multiple times before they’re Finished.