Usually the answer is no.
That is when the writing must be left for a time--I need the threads of emotional connection to fade enough that I can snip and reshape, so I can grow the piece into itself. When talking to beginning writers or writers who have never thought much about revision, it is hard to identify the emotional process in which one must engage. It can be difficult to understand the writing is not about oneself, especially in an era all about the individual and her or his achievements. And how does one even describe what that feeling is like when every writing event is different, when our emotional connections vary from form to form and from topic to topic? We can think of it as no less than an epiphany as James Joyce describes it:
First we recognize that the object is one integral thing, then we recognize that it is an organized composite structure, a thing in fact: finally, when the relationship of the parts is exquisite, when the parts are adjusted to the special point, we recognize that it is that thing which it is. Its soul, its whatness, leaps to us from the vestment of its appearance. The soul of the commonest object, the structure of which is so adjusted, seems to us radiant. The object achieves its epiphany. (Grudin, 1990, p. 58)The challenge of rewriting, of considering writing an art form, has long obsessed me. The closest I have ever been able to come with sharing this process was in my paper, Rewriting the Poem, available online in Textorium and published in How We Work (Morris, Doll, & Pinar, 1999).
In writing about rewriting, I understand the process more clearly; nevertheless, I feel that this work will always be a draft in process.
Returning to the writing and rewriting as part of the writing process then places a print on this work which is evolving over time?
ReplyDeleteI think so . . . like a palimpsest.
ReplyDeletePalimpsest=(Wikipedia) " a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped off and which can be used again"
ReplyDeleteAt the moment I am trying to write my doctoral thesis (about what it means to "be" a writer) to a tight deadline, which is good in some ways but is difficult in terms of generating those first painful drafts of chapters and then having sufficient time to rewrite them until they have their own 'integrity' (I like this way of putting it). So this post was useful in helping me thinking through the process of getting distance, which is always the biggest hurdle for me.
ReplyDeleteBut I also wanted to say that although I think you're right up to a point when you talk about the need to understanding the writing as not being 'about' oneself, for me, that doesn't go quite far enough. 'In an era all about the individual and her or his achievements', we can't think outside individualistic neoliberal discourses, however much we might want to. They shape us, how we position ourselves and are positioned by others. In that way, the writing we produce is always a part of us as well.
For me, I want to try and understand what this means without introducing a binary. My writing both is and is not about me. It is/is not "me". It isn't divisible for the affects/emotions that went into writing it, even though once it's gone out into the world, I can't control it and wouldn't want to. I want it to be good enough to stand on its own, but it's also standing for "me". Certainly in academia anyway.
*headdesk*
DeleteThe last paragraph should read divisible from, not for.
Thanks, Jo. Your response inspired me to write some more about this today. I struggle to articulate that sense I have. I don't think it will ever be a binary, however, because there is too much connecting the me/not me. It does not divide us but perhaps extends our consciousness? The relationship is fluid as the draft emerges.Let me know how your thinking emerges on this . . .
ReplyDelete