Do you? I mean, I can really procrastinate about some things. I do it all the time, or practically all the time, with writing projects. Long ago, the seed got planted in my mind that I produce much better work when I don't have any time to get it completed and have to rush. I remember exactly when I found this out. I was a sophomore at Jesuit High School in New Orleans, and we had an essay due in English. I had not done it. Cannot remember now why not, but I remember well the panic about not having an assignment done at all. That would be worse than a bad grade on the assignment.
So I solved the problem by writing the essay in the class I was in at the time. I forget what class that was, but it was the one right before English class. But I remember very well the subject of the essay. It had to be about some current event in the news, and I wrote about the election of Pope John XXIII. I had just happened. So that would make the time of the essay some time in early November 1958.
Well, guess what happened? The essay I dashed off without laboring over it, without any proofing, on the fly . . . it wins a writing award from the Times Picayune newspaper! It had to be nominated by the teacher in the first place. So, hell, what do you think that teaches an impressionable sophomore in high school? Right . . . and to this day, I do not do multiple drafts of anything I write. I edit as I go along, but when I'm finished, I'm finished the piece.
I found there's nothing more individual than people's writing "ways." All the ink that's spent by writers trying to tell other people how to do it . . . waste of time. People who write, write. And their way is the only way that really works for them.
2 comments:
you're right about writing--i mean, the individuality of it. for me, it's different. oh, not the procrastinating, which i too am a genius at, but the process.
i do often enjoy the great gush of getting out a draft of what's in my mind, although if i'm writing to a deadline that can be painful and awful. but what i love more is polishing it after that first draft is there, existing, proof that i can do it. i'll roll it around my brain and my tongue awhile, feeling if the word or phrase sounds right, contemplating changes, trying and rejecting or accepting them--actually that's probably what makes me a good 'ghost writer' [since my name is always on the book, not really ghost, but that idea.] shaping, reshaping, all that stuff. even on the blog, i won't publish it till i'm fairly happy with it unless i'm too anxious that 'save' won't save, so i publish right away.....even after i'm happy enough to publish it, i'll go back and change a word, a bit of punctuation, that sort of thing.....
actually this piece reminds me of a blog piece i want to do about my strange writing experience and a spider in my window who mirrored my process for a couple of weeks.....and also your last piece about modern art.....again, i'm the opposite of you. way more ignorant, i imagine, but just don't get most modern art. and what i do get, or at least react to, is often the wrong reaction-----so maybe i'll blog about edward hopper. love his stuff....but i suppose he's only technically 'modern.'
and--after much procrastinating--i finally turned in summer class grades today, and fall class doesn't start for 2 weeks--so maybe tonight........oh look, there's a pencil i haven't sharpened! maybe a cup of tea.....
An enjoyable post in which it's easy to understand and sympathize. I think all of us bloggers tinker with the stuff even after we've published it. I've found myself going back five or six times on some pieces. Fixing the obvious stuff: grammar, punctuation, missing words, spelling, etc. But also trimming and adding. I think that's the thing about the revision process: it's eternal. At some point you just have to let the damn thing go.
I await with pleasure whatever it is you end up posting. Whenever you get around to doing it. :-)
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