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How many times did I edit this, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. About fifty. I started it in 2003. Played with it here and there, then sunk a bunch of time in it yesterday.
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I get the irony.

heehee. yeah, i edit myself fairly obsessively sometimes too. and when i say sometimes, i really mean almost all the time. the veneer is almost sacred, isn't it?

There is nothing, not one little tiny thing, wrong with editing and editing and editing again. This your craft and your art, and you do it well. Keep it up.

We love you, Gordon. It doesn't matter how you do this, or how many times you go round the edit-go-round. Just --- please don't stop. 'Kay?

Me, I edit so compulsively that I can hardly write anything. All my censoring (well, the vast majority of it) takes place well before my fingers hit the keyboard. For this reason, when I do manage to write something, I almost only ever produce one draft. That's it. It's essentially pre-edited. To within an inch of its life. Any more and it wouldn't exist at all.

.

I have a half-finished novel sitting around here somewhere. If I'm ever going to finish it I'm going to have to take the same approach that caused me to spew out the first half: total willful non-self-censorship. This is the ethos of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and it's the only way I know to actually produce anything longer than about 20 pages.

.

both2and: beyond binary

I wish that I could say my ramblings go through as much scrutiny but I don't have the energy for it. That is probably why you have thousands and thousands of hits and I have maybe 100. I also find it humorous that when lacking a good writing idea, that we can turn inward and write about, well...writing. This is one of my recent favorites.

RLP - be glad there is substance before and after the edit. Many times all I feel is the edit itself. No bunnies, no monsters, just the edit.

Enjoying your reads.
Peace,
Josh

Gordon without the makeup, and don't make him mad.

My favorite Abe Lincoln quote (other than freeing the slaves, I mean): "I would have written a shorter letter if I'd had more time."

To me, editing is not makeup, but more like window washing: making things clearer so people can see what's really inside.

And you are freakin' nuts.

peace
Milton

I wish I was able to edit. I just don't seem to have the ability to go back and make corrections, add content, tweak a phrase, etc. For me, it's either all or nothing. Either I spit out a finished, polished piece, or I let it fester in my head until I've mentally written it out.

Sure, there are times I'm able to go into that Kerouac-ian stream-of-conscious, but usually it's for myself (mental house cleaning) or to get a thread of an idea down.

On being seen:

when Someone I Know Well was a little tyke, he was told that "Children are to be seen and not heard." As the story goes, he then walked around saying "See me. See me!"

I am one of those lucky souls who manages to write really well first draft. In fact, the more I edit, the worse my writing gets.



My book was written pretty much first draft, with a little bit of editing from an editor.

But I can appreciate the layers and the polishing and the separation with each revision, because I do it, too. Sentences deleted here and there, or clarified, or occasionally left alone.



It is true that relationship ultimately trimumphs. I've been writing online since 1997, and I am a better person for those who have followed my life with me, and been willing to walk with me through my journey.



peace,
iphy (renee)

oh my,
and clearly I needed an editor for the trimumphs.

I think this shall be my word of the week!
has a bit more "oomf" to it, doesn't it?

:)

renee,
slightly embarrassed

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I rarely edit posts on my blog (it probably shows).

I laughed out loud when I saw the first comment was you saying you edited this post 50 times.

Toooooo funny.

a lot of times i write an entire post on my xanga that is heartfelt and real and raw, and i edit it, and i re-read it, and i save it in my documents so that it never ever reaches my original intended audience. this seems to happen more frequently lately, now that my family reads my xanga. i used to be able to be honest with my freinds online. now my computer keeps my secrets.
maybe i should start an anonymous blog? maybe it will make me famous?

What is this "edit" stuff?
***
http://reverendmommy.blogspot.com

Funny. Writing and editing are very intertwined.

This is the way I look at it. There's YAMMERING, which I do quite often and I get those perplexed looks from people that indicate they have no idea what I'm talking about. And then there's communicating - which is when I consciously put a delay on what's in my head and what comes out of my mouth, which hopefully relates to whatever point or information I'm trying to communicate.

Language. It ain't for sissies. 'Specially if it's done right.

--Shari

I compulsively edit... so, perhaps I'm just being defensive. However, I think it is possible to see the editing process in a more positive light.

My highly-edited, finished product often reveals more of my soul than the first draft. For me, the editing process brings clarity and removes the unnecessary things that prevent others from hearing what I truly have to say. I think the real me is involved in every part of the writing process... writing, rewriting, and editing. I am unwilling to stop trying until my intended thoughts are on the page and that rarely happens on the first try.

No reason to apologize for editing.

I once prayed, "GOD, how can I be used in your Kingdom?" The next day He opened the door for me to become an editor. That was three months ago. I was young when I began; now I am old and gray. I love to write. I hate to edit, and I think from now an when I do my job, whether it be as a writer or an editor, all I will hear in my mind is the sound of Elmer Fudd singing. "Kill de wabbit, kill de wabbit......"
Thanks a lot Preacher!

I think you are very brave. Thanks for sharing.

Very funny and describes me to a "T"!

My wife and I took a battery of tests and one of the results indicated that we are both people with "high ideation flow." The test creator made it clear that this speaks only to the quantity of ideas and says nothing about the quality of ideas, so I particularly identified with the image lots of ideas floating around with nothing for them to grab on to.

We think our twins may have inherited this trait. At five years old they already like to walk around saying, "POP! I got another idea! POP! I got another idea! POP! ..."

~~Charles

We call them 'plot bunnies' where I come from.

Whether you edit or don't edit isn't really the issue, then. You like your work to be polished and clean. That's okay. I think the fact that you write at all is the best thing for that writer's itch. Some may write a first draft, and barely edit it at all.

but there are different kinds of writers just as there are different kinds of personalities. Being honest about the type of writer you are wasn't real the topic I picked out of this post. The real topic was relationship, and you see, that's why I am glad you write at all, because I wouldn't have known anything of you if you hadn't.

THANK YOU. :)

The best bit of writing advice I ever heard came in a workshop I took with Kathleen Norris. It was not original to her, but I can't remember who she got it from. The advice? "Slay your darlings" You know, those bits that sounded so clever when you wrote them, your purple prose that made you swoon with ecstasy, those are the ones that have to go. The editor has to be merciless. As a performing storyteller, the creation/ editing process is a bit different. I write something but most of the time I don't know what needs to go until I have told it outloud, which is why I have to have rehearsal buddies. Funny stuff especially only seems to come to me when there is someone present to laugh! I have been working on a long story for two years, but as I take it to workshops and tell it, I keep discovering bits that either need to go away or need to be expanded on. I think the creation/editing process is quite a good spiritual discipline. It teaches us humility and to be patient.

Hello Gordon:
I am a 'professional' technical writer. I put professional in quotes because if you looked at my notebooks, you'd think I was five. I never write in a straight line- I have phrases scattered and circled and every which way. My personal hard drive file system looks less than a folder system and more like an electric explosion of random files. I have toys in my cube and books scattered and stacked, sandwiching loose papers, with popcorn flotsam on the floor.

But somehow I manage to write also. Coherently. First comes the storm, then the cleanup crew- it's just how some people create. Don't judge yourself by it. I do too- all the time. My husband is anal retentive about his work, etc so you couldn't get two more different people together. I used to compare myelf to him and feel as though I am less of a person, an emplyee, because I'm so disorganized.

But when I write, professionally or even creatively on my own, I like what I see. And I don't think it could be there without the storm.

Chris

And thanks for the irony laugh about editing this fifty times
WAHAHHAHAHAHAHA.

-Chris

When I talk to graduate students about writing their dissertations, I always refer them to a piece by Betty Sue Flowers. See it at https://webspace.utexas.edu/cherwitz/www/ie/b_flowers.html.

Susan

We are all made up of comedy and horror - good writing is finding the balance and bringing it up out of the mess so that others can say "yeah, that's how it is". That's both good writing and the start of a relationship, IMO. Elizabby

And sometimes we meet kindred spirits in spite of our editing or lack thereof.

I am very grateful for this.

Love, Marya

i kept thinking about anne lamott's book, "bird by bird" and how she relates the first draft to being like a polaroid picture, coming into view:" ..at first it all seems very sweet, but then the shadows begin to appear, and then you start to see the animal tragedy, the baboons baring their teeth. And then you see a flash of bright red flowers in the bottom left quadrant that you didn't even know were in the picture when you took it, and these flowers evoke a time or a memory that moves you mysteriously. and finally, as the portrait comes into focus, you begin to notice all the props surrounding these people, and you begin to understand how props define us and comfort us , and show us what we value and what we need, and who we think we are."....and of course the must-read chapter entitled "shitty first drafts"..thanks for more insight into the writer, RLP,.. i think it would be fun to hear you speak about your writing process on an audiofile...

Edit or no edit, I just love the images of the little bunnies running to and fro...the angry mouth fiery furnace.....and chewing my leg off....

Image is everything...

There's a name (and a pill or two) for lack of attention if you have it to a pathological extent. Not saying you do, but some people do. I still have a hard time getting myself across in writing though.

Also, you know about quicksearches in firefox, right? If you're a keyboard instead of a mouse person, they're so speedy! I can do a bunch of different searches with max five keystrokes plus the search string, though I mostly just do yahoo and dictionary. Control-T or windows+hotkey to open a new firefox tab or window; {y,d,g} for yahoo, dictionary, or google; space; search term; enter.
*ducks*

Nonsense.

You and your message become closer and more understood as each edit makes it sharper and easier to read. Please, keep it up.

Some teachers of writing say that "editing is writing" and that the first draft is simply an excuse to get to the main event. That may be a little extreme when it comes to blog postings, ephemeral as they are, but it certainly seems to do a good job for your Christian Century and other essays.

I was wondering whether you are like that when it comes to the spoken word. When you talk to some people, you can almost hear the little wheels turning as they work out what they are saying, editing on the fly, as it were. Others just toss the words out as they occur to them and don't concern themselves with the "makeup" as you put it. Do you notice a big difference between your spoken preaching and your written preaching?

I am not choosing words right now. Just want to say you touch my experience of life very well, and I am happy not to be alone. Keep writin mate.
Judy fin