Not2Pervy
Seeker
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2022
- Posts
- 57
In the spirit of clarification and further reflection I’m kind of reassured to learn most people’s practice has been similar to mine: do some editing and refining while you write, but basically as soon as you feel like it’s done, then submit the thing.I feel that I should clarify the above.
I do read back each section as I write it. I periodically read the whole thing from the beginning.
I share sections as I write them with @Djmac1031 (and vice versa) and get the benefit of his input.
I listen to 3-4K word chunks in the car commuting. I catch typos, repetition, and poor phraseology that way. When I’m at a final draft, I try to listen all the way through again.
For longer / more complex pieces, I get input from betas. So it’s not like I just throw it together.
But what I have never done is leave a final draft to marinate and come back to it in a month. If I’ve done all the above, I publish.
I also seldom rip out and rewrite. For some reason, I seem able to get a high percentage of what I want first go. Maybe 80-85%.
I do on occasion go back and revise earlier sections to fit better with later. But that’s before I get to a final draft.
Emily
But I also studied enough literature in college to feel a little guilty about that, as if some kind of higher art can be achieved when you take the time to finely craft sentence structure, and imagery, and even add in symbolism and such. I once thought I wanted to be that kind of writer, but I’m not sure I have the patience for it.
I’m also not sure the smutty little fantasies I write here really lend themselves to that. I’m sure that’s not what most readers are looking for. But I can’t completely quiet the still small voice in my head that aspires to create something with a little bit of literary merit, “whatever that is.” Call it the delusions of a Liberal Arts major.