Celebrating Post #1300 and Revision as Re-Seeing

Before I share my thoughts on our current TeachingAuthors' theme, I want to note that this is post #1300 for our blog!

Wow! Who would have thought we'd be at this for 10+ years?! I hope all of our readers, whether newcomers or long-standing, are still finding this blog helpful. I'd LOVE if you'd share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments or email us at teachingauthors [at] gmail dot com.

Personally, I really appreciate what my fellow TeachingAuthors have shared so far on the theme of re-visioning the new year, 2020. Each post has left me with much to ponder and apply. I particularly love Gwendolyn's idea of taking a train ride (or simply "changing your environment") to gain a new perspective.

But Esther's chock-full post is the one I relate to most right now. In it, she talks of "RE-visioning" our work. That reminds me of something one of my first writing teachers, Sharon Darrow, said many years ago--that revision is about seeing with "fresh eyes,"  or what I call "re-seeing."

Image by chiplanay from Pixabay

 (Don't you love this image? It not only fits the theme, but it's SO perfect with Valentine's Day only 1 week away!)

In Esther's post, the suggestion that most hit home for me was to "look backward:"

"Return to your very first draft to take a second look at the story you were telling yourself. Then reread the subsequent drafts to see the choices you considered and the choices you made to tell that story to your intended readers."  

This is what I've been doing with my current work-in-progress (WIP), a project I started many years ago. My initial vision for it was as a series of poems. But after writing only 3-4 poems, I got cold feet. I thought the approach too unusual to be marketable. And, to be honest, I wasn't very confident in my abilities as a poet. So I switched to a more conventional approach. I've gone through many, many drafts of the straight prose version only to receive rejection after rejection. Some of the responses were encouraging, but they were rejections none the less.

Then an agent casually mentioned that the project needed a unique angle to set it apart. That's when I remembered my initial vision to write it as a series of poems. And that is the approach I'm working on now as I "press forward," as Esther says. I don't know if this will be the format that will finally sell, but for now I'm having lots of fun working on it. I'm currently experimenting with writing a poem in terza rima form. (If you're interested, you can read more about that in my latest Creativity Newsletter.)

Meanwhile, I want to remind you of a post I wrote back in 2010 that included a Wednesday Writing Workout to help you re-see a WIP in need of revision.

Don't forget to check out this week's Poetry Friday round-up hosted by former TeachingAuthor, Laura Purdie Salas.

Remember to always Write with Joy!
Carmela