Sometimes, in order to make something better, you have to scrap the whole thing.
I've always known this. The hard part has been making it work. I've unfortunately lived much of my life under the impression that if something on my work isn't criticised, it's "good enough," and doesn't require improvement. Regardless of whether or not the former is true, the latter is almost never true.
This was the biggest problem I had with writing my poem this semester. I had a lot of trouble letting things go because I couldn't bring myself to acknowledge that, even if they were good enough for someone else, they weren't good enough for me. It took me three painfully similar drafts to realize that I had gotten myself stuck in a terrible rut.
The "final" draft of my poem still isn't where I'd like it to be, but I'm oddly proud to say it looks nothing like the first draft, or the second or third. Interestingly, though, it still retains the same story and tone, but in much more comprehensible language that couldn't have worked without scrapping the previous drafts.
The poem, of course, wasn't the first time I ran into this problem. Earlier in the year, the Orlando essay served as a warning for me about getting too attached. I was unable to force myself to cut much of the early work, resulting in an irritating lack of clarity in much of the essay.
The essay also taught me something that seems fairly self-explanatory: Don't start writing until you actually know what you're writing about. I started out with what I thought was a pretty good idea of what I wanted to write about but realized after a couple paragraphs that I couldn't think of a thesis.
I made the stupid decision to try and push through, and completed a jumbled mess that required another brainstorming session to fix - except it never got fixed, and much of the original, subpar content made it into the final product.
I've learned my lesson about having a focus, but I'm still tentative about cutting the original content. I guess that's something I'll just have to get comfortable with.
