I have discovered a rather sizable flaw in this whole “being a writer” scheme. Namely, my complete inability to do second drafts.
I have mastered the first draft. Some would even say that I have gathered together the wherewithall to do “final polishes,” even though that phrase always sounds more than a little wrong to my ear - I always make the jump to “polishing a turd,” although God knows why, aside from some latent internal discontent with the quality of my work - but second drafts? I just can’t do it.
This is what happens when I sit down to do a second draft; I start by re-reading my first draft and then, instead of examining what I’ve written and looking for places where things need to be tightened or fixed, changed or expanded upon, I start writing from scratch again. Oh, sure; I have a better idea of where I’m going this new time around, and maybe I’ll lift a line or two, or if I’m feeling bold or lazy, even an entire paragraph, but it’s still a second version, instead of a second draft. For whatever reason, I can’t just go back and make small changes on anything. It’s all or nothing.
(And occasionally, it really is nothing: I’ll reread something and think, yeah, that ending doesn’t really work, and there’s an entire midsection that just drifts along aimlessly, but fuck it; it’ll do. I’m a much better editor of other people’s work than I am of my own, it has to be said.)
Back in high school, this wasn’t the case; I’d happily pick apart anything and everything I’d written for whatever class, looking for small ways to improve it and get those grades a little higher - or, in some cases, a little lower but still be satisfied because, dammit, it was a better essay. I still remember that Thomas Hardy essay, Mr. Reid - but somewhere along the years, I’ve lost whatever patience I had back then. Now it’s all I can do to finish what I’d originally written without throwing my metaphorical hands up in the metaphorical air and yelling “I’ll just do it over already!” I blame the whole art school creator mentality; life was easier when I not only felt less precious about what I created, but also didn’t really know how not to feel self-conscious and embarrassed about claiming to have created anything.
All of the above, by the way, is a first draft of this post. But it’s the third time I’ve tried to write it.
This is what I do when I’m waiting for editing notes on an essay I wrote for someone, apparently.
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Content © Graeme McMillan, 2008-2009.
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I’m with you. Any attempts to revise a written piece for me ends up with me using it as notes to do a new version whole cloth.