Lessons from the Revision Desk

Part 2: Sometimes It's Just You

There comes a time in every artist's life when the notes inside a well-meant critique will hit us the wrong way. A line we love will be reduced to cliche. A beta reader will cringe at wording we thought was clever or inspired.

It stings.

For some of us, it might spark the dreaded I'll-never-write-again-this-will-be-the-death-of-me head space. For others, it might bring about a snarling cursing match with the paper.

Those of us who are meant to will move past this, reaching for our calming ritual of choice and examining the advice a second or third (or dozenth) time. Often, this revisit is enough to convince us of the validity of the hated critique, and work may resume.

Occasionally, we'll come across that rare moment when the problem isn't the work. It's us.

The "problem" isn't so much a flaw of craft as it is a quirk of voice or style (perhaps in need of refinement). There will always be individuals who don't like our unique brand of expression. And there will always be individual aspects of our brand that avid fans will wish didn't exist. There's no need to sand ourselves down trying to please every dissenter, even as it is important to undergo polish to become what we were meant to be.

This is true of the selves we keep when we leave the desk.

Our planet would be a dry place if humanity was a monolith. Yet we are blasted on all sides by messages demanding we conform to this or that ideal. We are urged to curb our own needs in order to please a faceless hive lord who claims the pieces of our core can only manifest in a binary.

There is a reason the visible spectrum has seven themes and endless variations on those themes.

Embracing our own voice doesn't require us to disregard all outside influence and trudge ahead only as we please. It forces us to be responsible for the flavor we bring to those influences. It makes us both our own creators and our only unfinished project (remaining incomplete by design). It necessitates that we grow to prevent stagnation and boredom.

Cultivating our voice requires us to read our own minds instead of looking to others to do it for us. In the beginning, there will be no plan, only a desired destination.

But isn't that what vision is for?

Lessons From the Revision Desk

Part 1: Loving Something Doesn't Make it Good

This is probably the hardest lesson a writer has to learn when it comes to making a piece shine. As we go along, typing that first draft, we'll fall in love with certain paragraphs or scenes. We'll snicker as we re-read those beloved lines, proud of our wit.

These words may make us feel good about our skill. They may make us believe in ourselves even when the hard pushes come, even when it feels like we'll never put another productive word on the page.

Then the revision stage arrives.

We take out the red pen, put on our ruthless hats, and get to work.

And, in the light of a new day, our favorite scene doesn't seem so shiny anymore. The jokes that made us giggle and bolstered our spirits seem trite and unoriginal. The cute interaction between characters does nothing to drive the story. Witty sentences become awkward to the point we forgot what their purpose was.

So they have to go...because they're hurting the piece.

The same could be said of things we're clinging to outside our writing.

Trips to the coffee shop that result in more pastry than productivity. Friends who demand more of us than is healthy to give. Lovers who expect much and give little. Online interactions that steal our energy and depress us. Pretty shoes that pinch or harm our muscles.

In the end, we have to think about us first, about our needs.

Don't mistake me. I'm not talking about neglecting a friend to indulge a pleasurable pursuit. I'm not talking about ignoring a responsibility in favor of a fleeting fancy. I'm not talking about sacrificing family for unnecessary monetary gains.

I'm talking about removing people from our lives who refuse to respect our boundaries, who refuse to value our time. I'm talking about axing the things from our lives that make it harder for us to be happy and healthy. I'm talking about fulfilling the parts of ourselves that need nurturing.

This means coming to an understanding of what we each really need. It means understanding who we are as individuals. It means allowing ourselves to be different. It means looking inside ourselves and using the cave drawings there to tell us what we really need, what desires would make us happy.

And doing so can be hard work, just like cutting up something we spent months creating.

But it will be worth the struggle.

Retreating

Over the last few months, I've been absent from my desk. I stepped away from my (personally assigned) responsibility to put words to page. I gave myself some distance from my social media accounts.

In essence, I retreated from the world outside myself.

I imagine some of you are now expecting me to wax poetic about stress or depression.

I'm not going to do that. Neither of those are the cause for my retreat. The reason I took a step back is much more productive.

For several reasons (some of them self-esteem), I decided to make another effort to lose weight. I've tried before with varying degrees of success, but I wanted to do this the effective way. I wanted to make it stick this time. Doing so meant I had to devote time and energy to the endeavor. Time and energy I usually reserved for writing projects.

Because, for me (and so many like me), losing weight isn't about "calories in, calories out," which is nonsense pseudoscience to begin with. (But that's not the topic at hand.)

For me, weight loss had to begin with understanding why I'd gained it in the first place. What habits had I developed over the years that contributed to my current weight? Why had I developed those habits in the first place? And what could I do to change them?

The first and third questions were easy enough to answer.

It took digging to understand why, and that digging required emotional energy.

I had to crawl down inside myself and chip away at the walls to understand that I'd developed a fear of being small. Small things were treated as weak. And weak things were to be exploited and bullied. Large things were treated as strong. And strong things were respected and allowed freedom.

I had to wrap myself up in my own being to understand that I'd conflated eating with abundance. The more abundant your food supply, the higher up on the hierarchy you were. And the higher your place in the hierarchy, the less likely you were to be bullied.

I had to sit with my past to understand that I associated largeness with masculinity. The more masculine you were, the more revered and complimented you were. The more feminine you were, the more shunning and verbal attacks you received.

The worst part of it all, isn't knowing I took these toxic messages to heart.

The worst part is knowing I learned these messages at home. But I've grown to a point where I can only feel sadness for this knowledge. This sadness has led to a certain amount of determination.

I will rise above the toxicity of my past, and move toward a future of my own making, a future in which being myself is enough.

Finding Permanence

Permanence. Legacy. Meaning.

At some point in our lives, we all come to a point where we wonder what mark we've left on the world. What have we contributed to society? How will we be remembered?

The difficult part is eventually coming to the conclusion that at some point in the future, our contribution will be forgotten, no one who remembers us will be alive. So how do we leave a lasting impression when everything we know and do will eventually become obsolete and forgotten?

It's much easier than it sounds.

Step one: realize that people, ideas, and things are impermanent. New people will be born. New ideas will take shape. New things will be made. Your personal permanence will not be found pursuing them.

Step two: recognize that the only permanent thing in this universe is change, flow. No matter how we try to stop it. No matter how much we cling to the past, the future will come to pass. The new will replace the old. Sometimes this will yield productive consequences. Sometimes it won't. But it will happen.

Step three: understand  that you have a role in that flow. Each new person born has a place in the flow of the universe. That place is determined by their individual skills, desires, backgrounds, and opportunity. It is by striving for this place and being willing to allow ourselves to be that person that we find our permanence.

Meaning and legacy and, yes, even permanence, are found in the impermanent, ever-changing landscape of time. Permanence is found in the archetypes, and plenty of them exist for all of us to claim as our own.

Writing What You Know (Part 2)

Last time, I approached the subject of "write what you know" from the perspective of activism. For this post, I want to approach this issue from the perspective of gathering inspiration.

To do that, I'm going to start with a little story.

A few weeks ago, Trevin and I drove six hours to Iowa for a friend's wedding. Despite the awkwardness of meeting new faces and conversing with people who'd been absent for a good amount of time, it was fun. We tried new food and got to watch cable for the first time in at least a year.

Along the way, I learned a few things:

1) Jalepenos provide a perfect balance with tater tots when rapped in bacon and smothered in cheese. This might have become my new favorite junk food.

2) Don't guzzle OJ if you've waited so long to eat that you're feeling jittery. I discovered the body doesn't take to an overflow of food when it's crawling into starvation mode.

3) I'd be fine with living in the suburbs. I've been craving the city life for as long as I can recall, but i discovered living outside the bustle of urban turf and traveling to enjoy its bounty aren't as bad as I'd once thought.

4) Apparently, I have twilight blindness. Bright day and full dark are perfectly fine, but driving at twilight, when the sun hasn't completely left and the headlights come on, is a good way to have an accident.

5) Starers are everywhere. I used to think people only stared when the environment made them feel safe, and thus entitled to do so. I guess hotels are neutral ground.

6) Reuben pizza is a thing. I didn't get to try it, but there's a place in Des Moines that serves a pizza inspired by a reuben sandwich.

But what's the point in all this?

Material is everywhere. It's only a matter of looking around.

Learning is a full time job. Most college students already know this, but it seems once we leave the classroom behind we forget how important acquiring new information can be. This is especially important for creatives. No topic should be considered safe from a curious eye.

- Psychology

- History

- Culture

- Fashion

- Techniques

- Yourself

- Everything

The more you know, the larger the pool of resources you can draw from when creating. Thus, learning increases the diversity of your creative potential.

So: Write what you know, and what you don't know, learn.

Writing What You Know (Part 1)

Write what you know. At least, that’s the conventional wisdom. But what does it really mean?

I’ve seen plenty of media creators who seem to believe this means you should stick to the formulas you know, despite how harmful those formulas may be. (For an example of this, I can suggest the Tropes vs Women Series )

Considering that many of us have been raised in a culture that claims to “know” that women are less intelligent than men, people of color are more violent than whites, or trans*gendered individuals are just going through a phase, it isn’t surprising that we see these wrong ideas spouted back to us from the media we consume.

Sad, but not surprising.

Part of the reason why marginalization is so widespread is because wrong ideas about individuals who don’t hold privilege have been normalized. In everyday discourse and in media. The insidious thing is that these two sources feed off each other in a circle that requires energy and commitment to overcome.

But that energy sacrifice isn’t impossible to overcome.

As I’ve stated before, the key to rewriting what we “know” is to listen to the groups most affected by these ideas. Listening, truly listening, inevitably instills a sense of understanding in the listener. But that requires us to take the words of our fellow human beings at face value without attempting to validate the information we’re receiving though the lens of our own experiences.

The things each of us has lived through is not the whole of human existence. Recognizing that is the first step to learning.

So writing what you know is only half of the equation. The other is being willing to learn what you don’t.

Memorial Day Tribute