Rewriting
Great Egret with Catch, Oct. 14, 2024
"If you fall in love with the vision and not your words, the rewriting becomes easier." --Nora DeLoach
I had a vision for this photo, but it took thousands of tries to get it. Thousands of deleted photos. In writing I also have to hit the delete button on some good honest work. It’s hard to cut chunks of writing out of a document that took years to produce. There are days I just can’t do it. Days I really don’t want to revisit what I’ve already created. But I’ve discovered that not only have I learned more about my craft during the process of writing my novel, I’ve also gotten a better idea of who my characters really are, and what motivates them. I’ve learned more about the city they inhabit and how that might play into their dreams. In the process of writing the story, my vision of it has gelled from something tentative into something more powerful. And that means going back and rewriting chunks of it. That’s where De Loach’s words resonate for me, especially when I have to cut out pieces I worked hard to perfect.
It's not about my beautiful words anyway. It’s about the story I have to tell. So trust your story, trust your vision of it, especially when that vision matures and changes in the writing of it. As for cutting out that chunk of hard work, you don’t actually have to delete it. You can always save it in a ‘miscellaneous folder’ for future consideration.
