At some point during writing, you figure out that the “what” of your writing (what it says, and what you want it to say) are pretty close to finished. That leaves final editing–doing a little wordsmithing, maybe, cleaning up unwieldy sentences, figuring out what to do with all those extra commas, and so on.
What do you do to clean up your writing? Give some specific tips in the “comments” section!
6 users commented in " Editing, Polishing, Preparing for Publication "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI like to sit on it for at least 24 hours before I’m ready to publish. This gives me time to allow for critical reflection on a very subtle level while I do other tasks, and helps me look at the text in a fresh way when I return.
If possible -and only for certain types of writing – I also like to pass it around among a few friends, colleagues or professors who have either expertise in the area or who know me well and are critical readers. Even the simplest of feedback can open you up to a new direction that may take you back into the revise phase and help you more carefully craft the final document. I tend to err on the side of concise/brief and often get great ideas on which parts need expansion, definition or sound unlike my own natural voice. Friends always point those out!
For all my talk about writing for the love of writing I am HUGELY motivated by deadlines. (In fact, I have a polished piece of flash fiction which has been ready to submit to literary magazines for publications since early May, still sitting on my printer.) I think this is a characteristic I share with my students: polishing happens only the night before (or there about).
Last night, I had two friends over who had (two weeks ago) offered to help me polish the film. One studied film design at Chico State and one is a music-head. In the beginning of the evening of polishing, I cared about things like if they were hungry or whether we all needed to take a walk in the garden and stretch our legs. As the hours got longer and Rachel perseverated over transitions and frame length, I grew weary, then grouchy. Harper found dirge music to play in the background that made the film heavy and sad. By the time they were brainstorming production company names, I was laying face down in bed moaning, “just burn the thing to a disk, please!” (Though I have to say, they win because we do have a very righteous production company name.)
There is only one other time that I can think of in recent history where the editing and polishing happened collectively and that was with my former partner as we finished a co-written play for a script writing class I took in graduate school. I remember that we were supposed to have a small rehearsal with a couple of friends who had agreed to come into my class and present it. One guy didn’t show up and the other person, I think, had a headache. I was stressed, but they came through, miraculously. And in class the next day everyone loved it.
There is something so gratifying about sharing your work publicly. Another great thing to take forward to my students.
God, I hate this part! This is where I have to face the fact that I am a lazy writer. Still, it must be done. I even find it hard to edit pieces that I really care about. The one thing that absolutely motivates to edit is if I want to get a piece published. Then I’ll go in and clean up the language, fix the spelling, and so forth. Editing poetry presents its own set of problems. Should I use punctuation or not? Where should I break the lines? Should the lines start with capitals? Should this set of lines be one stanza or two? Or three? And sometimes, for me, it’s a matter of language. Should I change this to spanish? Does code switching suit this poem? It’s giving me a headache just thinking about this.
I’m new to this whole polishing thing. I’m eager to read your comments and learn some strategies that I can use.
By the time I get to the editing for publication part, I am usually freaking out because it is due NOW. The last minute is the minute I most often choose to make sure everything is in ship shape. Why do I do this to myself? Well, stress always helps me tend to drop a couple of pounds… but the real reason is my complete lack of discipline. My general wing-it-fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants outlook does not work when I know that someone will be reading what I have written. I want everything to be perfect. I read slowly, carefully, out loud, pen in hand ready to catch any errors in spelling or convention. This must be done on a hard copy. I swear the text begins to blur at this point in the process. Even though final editing usually does happen with little time to spare, I almost always ask someone else to read what I have written with an eye for editing. I make it clear – revision is over, we are just fixing mistakes now. When it is done, it is done. I have to let it go, breathe a sigh of relief and hope it makes good in the world on its own.
When I finish a piece of writing I do very little grammatical corrections, not because they don’t exist but because I fix errors as I see them during the revision process. I hate seeing those red and green lines on my computer screen and no matter how hard I try I can’t let them sit there un-attended. I quickly figure out how I can make those nasty little lines disappear forever. By the time I finish my eyes are immune to the errors. For this reason I ask someone to look over the finished product because they can see errors that I miss.