Revising Is Less Fun Than Writing

I get the importance of revision and I enjoy the shaping and reshaping, the correcting and embellishing. In no way, though, is it as fun as pure writing, as sitting down at the blank page and letting the writing come.

This week, during my revision work on Another Blade of Grass, I need to add a scene. I needed to dip back into Darren adolescence to lay the ground work for particular attitudes he portrays in the novel's present. And as I began writing, the world around me disappeared and I was sucked in. The words came. I discovered new things. Darren's eyes are hazel. I didn't know that before this week.

It happened again when I wrote an additional scene for one of Nicole's chapters. I needed to go back and establish the strength of her first love. We needed to see them in a way that was more detailed, more illustrative than just seeing her thinking about or remembering how she felt. Then, in creating that scene, winter outside, the two of them holed up in their small apartment devouring poetry, the right words came. Without real conscious effort came the terms to describe the strength of that love and why it still has an effect on her. This probably never would have happened if I were just scrawling with my blue pen in the manuscript's margins. It came from writing, from making my way down the blank page.

It is the creative process, the "creation", that makes me feel like myself. Revising, by itself, leaves me feeling out of sorts. Revision is simply not as fun as pure writing. I have much more of it to do, though. As long as I can mix in this sort of blank-page writing, it will seem less like work.

What Happens When

This morning, as I was leaving for work, giving everyone a kiss, my four-year-old boy was in his usual spot. My spot in the bed. Curious George on the TV. I kissed him hard on the forehead, shook his little torso with my hand, and told him to have a good day. I had turned and was headed out of the room when he spoke.

"Daddy, what happens when you wipe away kisses?"

I looked at him and smiled. "They still count," I said.

He smiled.

I go back to him, kiss him on the side of his head. Not too wet this time.

His smile grows.

Rejection Collection Catch-Up

It's bad enough finding that self-addressed envelope in the mailbox, but now with electronic submissions, I get to be rejected by email too. They keep coming and coming. It means I have to find new markets and toss the stories back out into the world. And now I'll share them with you. Let you share in my rejection. Take some of the sting away.

The first of this group is from the Sewanee Review, rejecting my story "Resting" back in February. I like the third-person reference to the editor here, pretending that he read it and the lackey is only sending you the rejection slip.

Alaska Quarterly Review adds a personal touch by at least touching pen to paper and saying "many thanks" in this rejection of "This Is What He Does" from February.

Extra credit goes to the Georgia Review for using colored paper in the above rejection for "A White Farmhouse" in April.

Apparently my story "Riverside" didn't suit the needs of The Chattahoochee Review, according to this rejection sent in March of this year. But I will feel free to submit again in the future.

I wonder here if the push for me to purchase a subscription, or at least back issues, is to tell me that my story "Deeann" was in no way right for Apalachee Review.

And then the electronic ones. Fugue emailed this nice, simple rejection of "Those Afternoons" back in February.

In March, Indiana Review rejected "Coyote in the Valley" and sent this kind email.

And finally, I received this notice of rejection from Sycamore Review in April for "Mechanisms."

In some way, the electronic rejections seem more kind. You can at least imagine someone sat down, typed this out, and hit send. It might not be true, but the rejection mill is less obvious than when they come as heavily copied, hapazardly cut slips of paper stuffed back into my own envelope.

But now, I have to get myself together and package up another bunch of submissions and get them out the door. And try not to take it all personally, right?

About

I am a writer.

Effectively unpublished. An MFA from Colorado State University. Working on a novel, trying to get an agent interested in another. Trying to find homes for a dozen or so short stories. Published only in my undergrad journal. Plus a piece of journalism in a trade magazine. Trying to write everyday.

I am a professional.

Doing financial planning and analysis. Analyzing results, putting together forecasts. What happened and what’s going to happen. An MBA from the University of Colorado. I read the WSJ, Business Week, Harvard Business Review. I actually care about this stuff. I am a career man, trying to do my best, trying to get ahead.

I am a father.

Three beautiful kids, a loving wife. Want to do my best by them. Offer them all I can. It’s exhausting. Time and energy consuming. Leaving time for little else.

I used to be a musician.

Not so much anymore. Played in bands. Fronted bands. Even played in coffeehouses, just me and my guitar. Not a lot of time of time for it these days. Pick up the guitar once in a while. Think of writing and recording again.

satoriworks is about all of this.

Since 2004. Blogging without focus. From writing and books to business and economics. Personal book reviews. Updates on current writing projects and the rejections slips flowing back in. And it is about doing all of this. Trying to be all of this.