Comments on: Revision: Packing Up the Past

By: Kristi Holl

Kristi Holl — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:41:25 +0000

I’m so sorry for your loss. What a heart-wrenching few weeks you’ve had. Thanks for sharing here and being such an encourager to others.

By: Carol Grannick

Carol Grannick — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:48:34 +0000

Thanks for your response, Paul. Same experience here: my middle grade w-i-p, now verse, was prose in the first draft. I’m so loving the verse format (my original published writing, long ago was always verse) that I’m planning to revise my first novel, it’s 13th draft sitting in a drawer right now, in verse.

I know for lots of young writers (thinking of my 4th and 5th grade afterschool students) it’s hard to believe in the possibility of something that doesn’t yet exist. Would you agree that a big part of ability as a “revision-er” can be learned the same way we learn positivity, for example, by taking leaps of faith via specific revision practices and through that process, learn to tolerate the anxiety of moving towards something that doesn’t exist yet? If we can do it in spite of anxiety, and we’re successful – i.e., the story improves – then it’s easier (not easy, just easier!) to take the next step.

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:39:17 +0000

Great Analogy, Carol. It sounds like you and your siblings had an intense but rich time.

I’m rewriting a novel now. Changing POV from third person to 1st person. It’s definitely a new path, a whole new book, really and I’ve had to delete passages that I loved. Really, almost nothing is the same, style wise. The premise remains. The original spark.

Thanks, Carol.