I finished my first polish of the script, cutting at least 8 pages in length. It's amazing how good dialogue can sound in your head while you write it, how conversations seem to flow and dance like a babbling brook; then you reread it, and the same scene feels repetitive and jumpy, and you have to mercilessly chop and refashion it.
The danger in the rewrite process is that you iron out the quirks with the kinks. A lot of what makes interesting writing is the element of the original and unexpected. But this can easily bleed into the contrived and artificial or even incoherent. Recognizing that you are as vulnerable to these traps as any other writer is ever-humbling. You have to accept it over and over again, in a perpetual process of flattening and fattening of the ego. I can't do this. I can do this. I can. I can't.
I can.
The difference between when I did this a decade ago and doing it now is the blog. Every day for over four years I've produced an entry, and none of what you read is ever a first draft. I edit the hell out of each entry before I post it, and sometimes after. I've tossed many a lovingly crafted paragraph because it just didn't fit. I feel like the Karate Kid--washing windows day in and day out turning out to be excellent preparation for the real deal.
It goes without saying that I'm on tenterhooks over tonight's debate. The question posed by Sarah Palin is not whether she has the qualifications to be Vice President using traditional measurements--that has been answered. The question is whether a crucial slice of Americans who are still undecided think a minimal amount of intellectual curiousity and an ability to articulate is even desirable for the job.
MCO 2008
it's great that you love what you do..
The Fragonard, "Young Girl Reading," is one of my favorite works of art. Perhaps it is because I purchased a poster of the painting to decorate my college dorm room as a freshman. It was my first foray into creating my own environment. I like the way you have used the painting in the Hy-Art.
When I write prose, I tend to do minimal revisions. Of course, I am a very slow writer. By the time I get it on the page, it has been thrrough many drafts in my head. However, when I write poetry, I am a ruthless critic of my own work. I edit furiously, trying to pare the poem down to its essence. I have no idea why I take such different approaches, depending on the genre.