2009 Debutantes

May. 8th, 2008 | 08:32 pm
Almost done with my line edits. Nobody told me writing could be boring. They just warned me it might be stressful, rewarding, depressing, exhilarating, damage my ego, boost my ego, send me over the edge, save my sanity, exhaust me, pep me up, and in general fill up every waking moment of my life....

When the kids were little, we went to a parents' meeting at their school and I asked the teacher why all her students were geniuses in the second grade? Look at the first grade. Blotches of green and black. Look at the third grade. Camouflage. But the second grade -- your grade. Matisses everyone. You've made my child a Matisse. Let me study with you. Let me into the second grade! What is your secret? And this is what she said: "Secret? I don't have any secret. I just know when to take their drawings away from them."

---from Six Degrees of Separation by John Guare

Writing the first draft of a story is an intense, often exhilarating experience, but I think most writers will agree with me that the real work, the nose-to-the-grind-stone kind of work, comes during the editing and rewriting process. I am constantly honing a story in the editing process, polishing, sharpening, sometimes slash-and-burning, in a way that slowly, painfully brings out the complete shape of the story. Sometimes it's a matter of getting it to look like it did in my head during the initial inspiration, but more often than not, I make discoveries during this process of refinement that change the shape of the entire piece.

Sometimes a writer might pop a story out of the oven and submit it too early, when the insides are still a bit doughy. Obviously, that no good and makes you look like an amateur. Other times, a writer succumbs to the dread "futzing". You know what I'm talking about. When you're messing with a paragraph so long you can't see the forest for the trees. When you're just shuffling punctuation around and rephrasing the same thing in a million variations that are (in all likelihood) all saying the same thing to anyone but you. The danger of futzing too much is that you crush the life out of it, second guessing everything you wrote until it becomes dry and overdone.

So how do you know when to step away? I'm not sure a piece is ever truly done (the statement of a chronic futzer, to be sure!), but at some point you need to submit the damn thing. For me, I know it's time to step away when I start to resent it. When I come to the writing table with a steely eye, a grim set to my mouth, and not a single ounce of passion, it's time to take a break. Because writing is many things, but it should never be joyless. I usually have a couple of stories going at once, so sometimes this means I put it away for a month or two and work on something else. Or, if I think it's nearly there, I might send it off to a friend I trust to read it over. Because ultimately, I'm not sure I can trust myself yet to know when the drawing needs to be taken away.

What about everyone else? How do you know it's time to step away from the keyboard?