This morning I was talking to a friend/student who said he just had an epiphany about rewriting. For years in class he’d been writing rants, spilling on paper the things he felt deeply about – relationships, his work, politics – and he’d get good feedback in workshop, everyone was interested, but his pieces needed more work. Now, he said, he’s gone from ranting to writing,rewriting his rants.

I had an idea in class last week about another student – she’s a good writer and has wonderful material, but gets stuck a lot, “paralyzed” as she says. She always reads something new in workshop. I asked her about rewriting, guessing that’s what paralyzes her – and she said she’s lazy, she doesn’t rewrite. Quite simply if you don’t rewrite, either using feedback if you’re in a workshop or letting your writing sit for weeks and then going back to it with fresh eyes (over and over) – the odds are you’ll never be published.

Writing is rewriting. Sometimes, if you work really, really hard, like once in a blue moon, the Muse will come down and whisper over your shoulder, giving you a gift. But usually we get the gift the hard way – working for it word by word, changing and switching, and throwing out and reimagining. Most of us can’t do this in our heads so we do it the messy way, on paper, and therefore spend a lot of time cringing over our own writing.

I myself am now on the fortieth or so draft of a 650 word prologue I’m writing. It’s still pretty awful but I’ve been a writer for a long time so I have the hope that it’s headed in the right direction.