Rewriting ideas on editing
Thoughts on letting go of the binary notion that we simply write, then edit.
This morning I pulled on my running kit then trotted down through the dappled light of the park, and along quiet streets of grand Victorian houses, getting into the rhythm of a slow, ambling jog. Breath in, breath out.
The town where I live sits on the banks of the Bristol Channel, where the River Severn, stately and slow by this point, meets the sea. Somewhere in these waters are harbour porpoises and pods of dolphins. Atlantic seals sometimes surface, bobbing in the currents. There is the slosh and hiss of waves on the rocks, the distinct tang of seaweed in the air.
It’s a good place to run. The path along the coastline meanders past small sail boats covered with faded tarpaulin, then a bandstand, where the lycra-clad pound fists into pads held up by a personal trainer.
“Again!” he says. “Good! And again - left jab then right hook. Left, then right!”
Further along, beyond the coffee stall and fish and chip stall and the crazy golf course and the skate park, is the Marine Lake, whose water is refreshed each high tide, bringing fish and eels and crabs for the coldwater swimmers and paddle boarders to navigate.
I often pause here, to gaze out towards the distant Welsh hills on the other side of the channel, my breath slowing. Then I turn, and run all the way back to the beginning again.
**
We live in a binary world. Good and evil. Us and them. Night and day. All those 0s and 1s of the digital world. Work and play.
But the Bristol Channel is a messy, silty, liminal place - not quite sea, not quite river. A transitional zone where saltwater and fresh water mingle, the overlap complicated by rates of flow and tidal action, by wind and the shape of the land that bounds it.
As a writer, I am inspired when two different things collide in this way. The juxtaposition creates something new and specific, complex and nuanced. And this morning , I thought about how it was a challenge to the idea that creating a story is a simple binary process of ‘write, then edit’.
**
I ‘finished’ a novel a couple of years ago. Those inverted commas are important. Finished, as in I have written a couple of drafts. But there is much more that needs to be done with it.
It is at a mingling point, a messy muddle somewhere between the initial creative flow and the need for hard-edged editing.
This is the place where the ‘re’ things happen. Reshaping and remoulding, rewriting, revising, re-imagining.
Re: word-forming element meaning "back, back from, back to the original place;" also "again, anew, once more," conveying the notion of "undoing" or "backward," etc.
c. 1200, from Old French re- and directly from Latin re- an inseparable prefix meaning "again; back; anew, against.”
https://www.etymonline.com/word/re-
**
The initial part of writing is when we get to play the most, putting ideas on the page, splurging words and ideas, making a glorious mess. Then, the binary argument goes, we put away the playful and haul on our big person pants on for the editing stage. Two different processes, requiring two different modes of thinking:
Writing/drafting: Creativity, free-flowing idea generation, and intuition. The focus is on the process of getting words out.
Editing/revising: Critical thinking, analysis, and precision. The focus shifts to structure, clarity, grammar, and reader impact.
There’s sound reasoning in this. Separating the two helps many writers avoid "self-censorship" too early—if you edit while drafting, you risk stalling or overthinking.
But there’s also danger. Writing and editing aren’t neat divisions. There is a middle ground where we reassess what’s been written and reveal the good there. Going back, in order to go again.
This is redevelopment. Not quite initial creation, but also not quite editing and its brutal, butchering terms – delete, kill your darlings, cut, slash, scrap. Chop and correct.
Of course, true editing does need that steely edge. The point reached when you need to become, as the author Zadie Smith said, a piece of writing’s reader, not it’s writer.
But for me, there’s a softer, rounder process that sits between. The part with all the ‘re’ words in it.
**
When I come to the end of my run, my breath begins to slow and my body is filled with a honeyed rush of endorphines. A feeling to savour.
It’s been a while coming, this sense of clarity and momentum. But I know what to do next. Find the middle ground where I redevelop the novel - mingling the freedom of fresh creation with some hard-nosed decision making.
And in that moment, another word rose up. The ‘re’ word that is really one of the most important things we writers need, regardless of how we think about writing craft. The ability to stick with it, to try again, to push on.
Resilience.
Excellent, Ken.
Just the title 😎 . . . 🤓!